3D Hand, by Caleb

Have you ever had a problem that no matter what you tried, it would not go away?

Ten years ago, I thought it was a fluke. I thought it just needed to be quickly fixed, and then we would move on with our lives.

It took longer than I figured, but it did mostly eventually go away.

Until it didn’t, because eventually it showed back up, bringing a friend with it. So now there were 2 problems. The medical people seemed unable to help me, so I tried the chiropractic people. That helped for a while. Problem solved.

Years went by.

And then the cat came back, and now there were 3 of them. And then 4, and then 5.

Okay, there was no cat. I’m talking about my hip here. And then it was my hip and my shoulder, forever appearing together ever since. Then it was my hip, my shoulder, and my finger tips. My heart did weird things.

I remind myself of Paul. Even he had problems that God did not take from him:   “Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.”  –2 Corinthians 12:7-8

Paul pleaded, but God did not take it away:

9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  –2 Corinthians 12:9   We do cry out for God’s power more when we are weak, don’t we? When we’ve “got this”, we start to think we have no need for God.

Being gluten-free helped for a while, until it didn’t. 

Today I went to the dermatologist. Give me something to make the pain and ugliness of my nails go away. Heal the ache. But they said it isn’t supposed to hurt. It’s only supposed to be ugly, but my fingers hurt.

She wants me to see another rheumatologist and get all this mess figured out. She’s calling my doctor to discuss it. I don’t want them to discuss it. It’ll only bring light to the fact that I never showed up for the x-rays she ordered. (I don’t need more x-rays. They never help. Enough already.)

I don’t want to go. Yes, I know something is wrong, but I don’t even care what it is anymore. I don’t even care that they can’t fix it. Prescription strength Naproxyn takes the edge off. When it’s not enough I have Lidocaine patches. I go to physical therapy and do the exercises they tell me to do.

I’m tired, and I’m done worrying about this medical mess.

I have accepted all of the cats. They can just stay.

Today I don’t feel like fighting it, whatever it may be. I just want to lay down and cry. All right, truth be told I broke down crying in the dermatologist office. I didn’t want to, and it was embarrassing. She kept asking me questions, and talking about it makes me sad and confused. These are issues that I’m ignoring and hiding in the subconscious area of my brain. Didn’t you see Inside Out???

Today I don’t care about all that. I only want to be held in the arms of Jesus. I long only for the comforting of the Holy Spirit. My physical problems are a small thing. The pain comes and goes. These aches are temporary. Everyone dies. We don’t last forever.

There is so much more to life than the physical.

My children, my happy thoughts

I’d much rather focus on helping my boys with their problems, and we’re beginning to realize that one of my sweet boys has quite a battle ahead of him to fight. I hurt for him, and I want to fix it for him. Only I don’t know how.

It isn’t our job to fix all the problems.

Our job is to be supportive and loving. Look for hope where you can find hope. Hold on to the promises of God that you are never forsaken. Rest in the arms of Jesus, and allow yourself to be comforted.

“The Spirit also hears our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groaning which cannot be uttered. And he that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”    Romans 8:26-27

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you: when you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon you.  For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior.”  Isaiah 43:2-3

No, some of our thorns will never leave our earthly body, but there’s a soul inside of us.

That soul is forever, and it is ever so much more important than any flesh and bones made from dust. That soul gets its nourishment from love and communion with God. We gotta keep on praying, singing, loving our children, helping our fellow-man, and loving even the least of these. And when life hurts, cry to Jesus. Don’t be too proud to get help.

28Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.…”  Matthew 11:28-29

Let’s keep encouraging one another, especially when life is hard. Thank you all for encouraging me through 2016. I thank God for all of you!

The post When Your Problems Won’t Go Away appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Alan and Mom. Mom was such a huge help the week of my procedure. Thanks, Mom!!

The Move

Yesterday I started cleaning out the kitchen cabinets and drawers. No, I’m not packing myself. Alan’s job hires people to do that, so why would I?

What I’m doing is trying to eliminate all things that I do not want or use so that I don’t have to unpack them in a few weeks. We have way too much junk.

Junk. Just junk.

How do we all accumulate so much of it?

Is it the result of retail therapy gone overboard?

The inability to let go? I don’t know. But somehow every two years, we haul off truck loads and truckloads of our old stuff to Goodwill and the dump.

Occasionally, we sell a thing or two. I got $25 for an Ergo baby carrier…

Bye-bye, Ergo, we had a love/hate relationship anyway.

I sold a Mickey Mouse Cake Pan for $5. Because let’s face it. I bought it 2 years ago and never used it. I’m obviously too intimidated by the directions and the hand cramping to actually decorate a Mickey Mouse cake.

My hand hurts now, just thinking about squeezing out all those icing stars.

So yeah, we’re moving. We still don’t actually have a house to move INTO yet, but we hand over the keys to this one on June 25th.

Do you know what the funny part is? The funny part is that my California Health Crisis earned me a plane ticket with JD, so I don’t even have to participate in pack and load week or the cross-country road trip. I leave on the 20th.

……Oh. my. goodness. Daniel is watching Teletubbies. I thought we killed those obnoxious things off years ago. How? How are they suddenly back here, back into our lives????

“Daniel, please, please, don’t watch this show. I can’t take it. It’s too dumb.”

“Yeah,” Daniel agreed. Now we’re watching an alphabet video. It’s not too bad.

What was I saying? OH YEAH! Our moving plan. I ended up getting the super-sweet side of the stick, thanks to my psoriatic arthritis issues.

Mom and Me at Point Lobos. We’ve established that Pt. Lobos is what I will miss most about California, right?

The Psoriatic Arthritis

Psoriatic arthritis is basically pronounced sorry-attic arthritis. In my head, I also call it sorry ass arthritis because that’s what it makes me feel like.

It’s back, and it’s ugly, and I’ve just stopped playing around about it. My big toe swelled, but I’ve figured out a way to walk without using it, and then I bumped it just a tiny bit on JD’s potty stool, and now it’s swollen, bruised, and bloody.

The ligament that connects my knees to my hips is inflamed all the way up, on both sides, and my left thumb is permanently bending slower than all of my other fingers. The shoulder tendonitis is back too. But at least the plantar fasciitis finally went away. So, there’s that.

The Heart

I asked my cardiologist about what anti-inflammatory meds I could take. I need them right now, for this flare-up and the up-coming travel.

He was obviously not too concerned. He said, “As long as you don’t take cocaine or meth, I’m good.”

As you can see, my cardiologists are super worried. Not.

I had my last appointment the other day. Dr. G is my super-soft-spoken but very personable electrophysiologist, a.k.a. a highly educated heart doc that specializes in electrical problems of the heart, arrhythmias such as ventricular tachycardia.

He was actually kind and sympathetic about my Linq monitor. Wait. A kind and sympathetic doctor? What is this new thing?? I’ve just had bad doctor luck these past two years, so this was a nice change.

He’s funny too. I asked if anything had shown up on my Linq monitor. He explained that he has the parameters on the thing set so that the v-tach won’t register unless it’s over 195 bpm or at least 16 beats in a row.

“Ha! I don’t think it’s ever that bad,” I said.

“Well, I set it that way because that’s the point at which we would need to do something about it.” he explained.

Sure.

“Can I put off going to a cardiologist for a while because I’ve got so much to do with this move… I feel like I’ve been to the cardiologist enough for one year anyway…”

“Yes, of course, you have a lot going on. Take care of that, and then you can get a new cardiologist. UNLESS you have symptoms.”

“I have a lot of symptoms lately, but none long enough to set off the monitor (16 beats), so what do I know?”

“Well, that’s because you got a plate full of s***.”

Haaa!!!  Ain’t that the truth.

I’m always surrounded by children or other stay-at-home moms or home school moms, so I don’t hear a lot of conversational swear words. So now when I do hear them, it’s really hard not to giggle. Yeah, I probably did snicker.

Oh, well. Dr. G says he’s not worried about my v-tach. My heart is structurally fine.  His actual words were, “You’re not going to die suddenly in your sleep or anything.”

Ha! So there’s my good news of the day, folks. I’m not going to die suddenly in my sleep, at least not this year. It sounds like a joke, but that DOES happen to v-tach sufferers when there is heart disease present or with an inherited condition, like Brugada. However, when those things aren’t present, and the v-tach is short, like mine, it is considered benign.

JD was seriously THIS small when we moved in!! 2 years ago!!

I have a good sense of closure from this California Health Crisis chapter: the pain, the fevers, and the heart thing…Most of it was all from psoriatic arthritis, which mostly goes away if I don’t eat wheat or get too stressed. So there you go. I’m learning how to better take care of myself.

And the funny part…

So did you catch the part about Alan? Did you read that right? They wrote me out of the cross-country move and the pack week. SOOOO..  Alan will be overseeing the pack out and the cross-country move by himself, along with our three oldest children. That’s right. Alan is  doing a week-long road trip with Joshua, Caleb, and Daniel.

I know. Poor Alan. What kind of a wife am I? Well, I’ve done all the other pack and moves, thank you, most of them by myself. But yes, I usually shipped off the kids.

I’ve asked him repeatedly to send another kid on the plane with me, to lighten his load. But Alan says it will be fun.

I’ll give you a minute to laugh…

It won’t be dull, anyway. You gotta give him that. A friend of ours suggested that we should strap a Go-pro on Alan for this trip. It would surely make for a funny video.

Nah, what am I saying? Our kids are perfect angels, and so are we.

In fact, today I gave Cherielle a ride home from church, and Alan had all four boys with him because we’re trying to keep the van CLEAN, in order to sell it.

Alan decided to take all the boys with him to the grocery store.

While he was there, there was quite a spectacle. A certain five-year-old boy took a gold “good behavior” reward coin from his big, eight-year-old brother.

“Hey, give that back!” the eight-year-old demanded.

But the little guy only clutched the good-behavior coin even tighter. Oh, the irony..

So the two ended up WRESTLING IN THE FLOOR of the check-out line over this coin. The oldest boy, a ten-year-old, was dismayed and embarrassed at his younger brothers’ behavior, so he started punching the middle one in the back saying, “Cut it out! Get up! Cut it out!”

my little wrestlers with Aunt Janet and Nonna

Don’t worry. They were quickly apprehended, and upon their return home, appropriate consequences were measured out. I’m sure those weren’t our little angels, scrapping it out over a Sunday School coin in the floor of the grocery store….Nah….

I’m just thankful I was not at the grocery store. I was at home putting the frozen pizzas in the stove.

Just another day in paradise, y’all. Have a great week!

The post The Move, My California Health Crisis, and The Grocery Store Scuffle appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Ah youth. Where did you go, youth??

My Battle with Chronic Pain Part III: The Pain Returns

It reminds me of that song: “The cat came back the very next day; it just couldn’t stay away.”

Life was going well, and I was on cloud NINE, being finished with my very first year of home schooling! Wahoo! Summer! I made big plans.

But why wouldn’t I? I was young and healthy. I should be able to handle a cross-country flight and a few short road trips. Right? And don’t give me the, “You just need to be more active,” talk because I was being active. The problem was all the sitting and riding!

It started with the plane, it worsened with each car trip, and I took several.

When I first arrived in Florida, Alan called me from home, “I made you a doctor’s appointment.”

“Why?” I asked. I hate doctor’s appointments, and I had been doing so well.

“For your back!”

“My back is better. I’m good, Alan, I don’t need a doctor.”

“Ehhh, I think you do. Let’s keep the appointment, and you’ll probably be glad you have it by the time you get home.”

Heh? Did my husband just do a little soothsaying? Was he saying that he knew I’d be back to hurting by the time I got home?

I shrugged it off. I enjoyed my vacation. He joined us. We took even more car trips in the South.

fun in the sun

And Alan was right. I was happy to go to the doctor by the time I got home. What is it with airplane and car rides??? I don’t think this is normal.

The doc was a super friendly chap. He offered me a shot for my shoulders to loosen them up. I declined. I’ll never forget seeing my mom get a shot for a similar shoulder problem. It hurt much worse before it felt better. No thanks. My shoulders are more stiff than they are painful, so I’m not that desperate yet.

The Physical Therapy Phase

He sent me to physical therapy for my hip.

I tend to lean towards my left when I sit to keep the pressure off my bad hip. That hip hurts bad when it flares up.

“Why are you sitting like that?” the physical therapist, Ryan, asked me.

I’m so dumb. I went straight into defensive mode instead of patient-being-helped-by-a-doctor mode.

“What? Like how?” I asked trying to straighten my posture.

“All cocked to one side.”
“I don’t know.” Yes, yes I do know. Why didn’t I just admit my hip hurt? That’s what I was there for, geesh.

Doctors are always asking me questions that are probably super obvious, but I haven’t thought about it. So two days later, bam! I always figure out the answer to their questions. And that is why I am so thankful for physical therapy.

Yes, they made me do stretches, exercises, taught me how to squat properly, etc., etc. But the biggest thing was that I finally began to learn what I had begun to truly want to know:  What is wrong with me????

Ryan would work on an area, and I noticed that he knew the exact name for every single thing he worked on.

“That hurts bad. What is that?” I’d ask him.

“That’s a muscle.”

“What muscle is it?”
“That’s your tensor fasciae latae muscle. It’s a compensatory muscle.”

I learned that the tensor fasciae latae, and several other muscles become inflamed when the more essential core muscles are weak, but I also learned that those muscles tighten down when they are protecting something that’s injured underneath.

“Yow! What is that?” I have more angry muscles, tendons, and bursa than I had ever realized.

“That’s your iliotibial band. You’d be better off if I don’t work on that. You need to roll it at home with a rolling pin.”

He was right. He did work on it right before Christmas break, and every where he touched it there were little bitty bruises for a couple of weeks.

Physical therapy was fantastic. My favorite part, besides just being so happy to get out of my house, was the ice therapy at the end. They laid ice over my achy shoulder muscles and that evil iliotibial band, which is a tendon that runs down the right side of the thigh.

I was able to learn so much from my physical therapist because he was actually able to see me enough times to know the real deal about what was going on. The doctors, on the other hand, only have that one visit to go off, in which I answer all their questions wrong but realize what I should have said days later.

And then I finally had a lumbar MRI and a shoulder MRI. The verdict was in: not a single thing wrong with my spine. Ryan was right.

And the shoulder: tendonitis and torn muscles.

I asked to see a rheumatologist. I did this because I had done some research and came across a disease that sounded so much like me. Yep. I’m guilty. Self-diagnosis.

Enter the Rheumatology Phase

Now you want to talk about life-changing self-evaluation questions. My rheumatologist asks questions that I simply go blank on.

“How long does it hurt in the morning?”

Ummmm I never thought about it that way. Some days it does not ever go away. Some days I don’t hurt at all..

So I said, “I don’t know. Once I get going, I’m okay.”

I hated not knowing, and why have I never noticed? Then he asked me which is worse, morning or night?

I have no idea!

So I’m making a chart. It’s enlightening. Every day really is different.

So let me tell you what I think I might have (but of course I’m not a rheumatologist):

Psoriatic Arthritis: This disease is hallmarked by joint inflammation, which I have yet to be able to prove, except for tendonitis. Tendonitis is also part of PsA, though. So is nail psoriasis. You can read more about it here. (rheumatology.org link)

Was I right? We still aren’t sure, but we’re working on figuring it out. I could be dead wrong.

In fact, I had a rheumatology appointment this week. I do like my rheumatologist. He wasn’t convinced of the PsA. My blood work did not help me any, as it was free of any inflammatory markers. The day they did the blood work I felt pretty good. But he has ordered a hip MRI.

What is the deal with all the torn muscles, tendonitis, and bursitis (in both hips) if it isn’t psoriatic arthritis? That IT band syndrome that I have in my legs is called “runner’s knee”. Only I’m not running anymore, haven’t run since JD was born.

Over Christmas, I figured I’d get rid of all of this. I would just rest.

“Rest will fix it all,” I assured my parents, as I spent the entire vacation, practically, laying in bed. I literally could not sit down. The pain was even radiating into my pelvis bone, when I was lying in bed.

I love this photo by Janet. I literally woke up, rolled off my ice packs, posed for this picture, and went back to my ice packs.

My internet research assured me that rest is the way to fix tendonitis or bursitis.

Of course, that didn’t work. I finally went to urgent care and got a steroid shot.

The nurse practitioner assured me, “This will help, temporarily, but if you’ve had bursitis for three years, a steroid shot is not going to take care of it.”

It did help enough to get me through that plane ride, but returning to a wet California did not help. By Wednesday, I developed a terrible limp. It was so hard to walk.

And guess what, by Friday I could walk completely fine again. In fact, on Thursday and Friday, the sun came out and I felt down right wonderful. I was so excited.

Maybe this flare up is coming to an end, and I am excited about that, but I’m desperate to get to the bottom of it. Now the whole family is telling me I can’t go on the cross country road trip in the spring because I never know whether I will wake up completely incapacitated or not.

I have a doc appointment on Monday. We’re going to address my anxiety level, my heart,  and the renewal of my physical therapy referral.

This is getting personal. Rest didn’t work. Maybe exercise and nutrition will. It’s time to put this Humpty Dumpty back together again, and I mean business.

I do want you to know that while I was stressing out about this earlier this week, I am doing much better both physically and emotionally now. Even if I never find out “what’s wrong.” it will be okay.

“He, whose heart is kind beyond all measure,
Gives unto each day what He deems best,
Lovingly its part of pain and pleasure,
Mingling toil with peace and rest.”   (from the Hymn Day By Day, my favorite hymn)

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

In case you missed it:

Part I: My Battle with Chronic Pain

PartII: My Battle with Chronic Pain

The post My Chronic Pain Battle Part III: The Cat Came Back the Very Next Day appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

The oldest children are off on a play date. JD is taking his nap, and the house is quiet.

Can you feel the excitement??  I’m so excited; I could dance around and make carpet angels……if I had more energy. However, I’m old, and I spent all of my energy on teaching them and making their lunch, so instead I’m going to throw a VIRTUAL party, sitting right here, with my laptop. 🙂

Okay. I will calm down now and try to share what’s on my brain. I just heard a noise, and I sincerely hope that it was the wind and not a two-year-old waking up. I’m sure none of you want to see a grown woman cry.

Let’s talk about what’s been going on lately.

I’m still glowing from the women’s retreat. Real life is back in full force, but all’s well.

Every time I hear “all’s well”, I think of Disney’s Robin Hood and the little vultures that shouted, “It’s two-o’clock, and ALLLLLLL’S WAYEL! ALLLLL’S WAAAAAYEL!”

I only watched that movie 100 times when I was a child.

So yes, “All’s waaaaaayel!”

This weekend:

1. I was on my last pair of contacts because I keep forgetting to go pick up the new ones. JD broke the leg off of my glasses. Then the power went out for almost 24 hours! For a minute, I was worried I’d never get to see again. Ha! But all’s well that ends well.
2. I lost all of my home school paper work that was overdue to my umbrella school. We are not our own private school this year. This year I wisely chose a local Christian school to be a part of, which will make the move go much more smoothly.

So those were my issues, but those things have all been taken care of, for the most part. I totally just took all four boys into the eye clinic with me and picked up my new contacts. It was a long 20 minutes and a whole lot of little boys making faces at themselves in the mirror, but it is done. Phew.

Caleb has been improving in soccer like never before. Two games ago, he had SIX goal attempts. The goalie caught every single one, but we were still thoroughly impressed. Go, Caleb!

Daniel is tearing it up in pre-school. I’m as pleased as punch. I hit upon three must have tools for FUN pre-K learning:

1. Chutes and Ladders: This game will drill numbers, counting, and how to play a board game into a kid’s head like no other. Even for K and 1st grade it’s helpful because every board space is numbered, all the way to 100, which reinforces the higher numbers.
2. Alphabet Bingo: Now that Dan knows most of his letter sounds, this is perfect. We don’t call letters by their name, but by their phonetic sound, which makes for a quick transition to reading.
3. Popsicle Number Puzzles: Aunt Amy created a pre-school kit that is mega, mega wowza. Both littles love the craft stick-puzzle activity the best; I mean now that they’ve used up all of the sticker shapes. Here is the kit:

Here’s the WOWZA KIT! Dan and JD LOVE it. Their fave: She took 10 craft sticks, glued a photo onto them and then cut them apart and numbered the sticks. You can line up the numbers and the picture…..pic to come soon!

Big thank you to Luke!

Alan was privileged to go fishing in Big Sur with his friend Luke last week. If any of you are dying for ling cod, stop by, and we’ll give you a few fillets from our freezer. Alan caught the maximum allowable amount. Alan rarely does anything like this, so I can’t tell you how excited we were for him.

ling (?) cod

Big Sur area

Update on the back drama:

I have this ongoing hip, shoulder, lower back, and finger tip pain problem. Well, actually my fingers aren’t in pain. They are just sensitive to the touch, and I have trouble with fine motor movements. Plus, I get these random low fevers that only stay 24 hours (thankfully) and then go, but that’s been happening for a year now.

I still say I have psoriatic arthritis. I have ALL the symptoms, except for “sausage fingers”. I just haven’t asked my doctor about it, which I need to do.

Anyway, whether it is just a mechanical issue from always using all the wrong muscles or an arthritis issue, either way EXERCISE helps.

The only catch? I’m out of the exercise habit. I still walk daily, but that’s about it.

Enter physical therapy round #2. I’m very happy with my PT team, Ryan and Jesus. Yes, that’s Spanish, so it’s pronounced Hayseuss. I asked him if anyone ever calls him “Jesus” (pronounced the English way). He said, “No,” and I don’t think he laughed. Ha! I told him that just means he’s never been to the South because I know plenty of folks back where I’m from that do not know the Spanish pronunciations of anything.

I still laugh when I think of one family member calling queso, “queso,” pronounced the English way, at a Mexican restaurant.

Okay. Sorry. I got off topic. My point was two-fold:

#1. It will make their lives easier to know at least a little Spanish, so I do think that’s important for children raised in America.

and

#2. I’m hoping my chronic back pain issues will continue to get better as I go through my second round of physical therapy. It’s a terrible thing to pop Advil all the time. (Don’t worry. I typically only take a couple/day.)

It’s bed time that bothers me most. Who can sleep with an unhappy hip or back?

Don’t worry about me, though. Most of the time I’m so busy I don’t even notice it, and if I would take better care of myself, this would improve.

Which brings me to next year…..

We are now 8 months out from our next big move. We aren’t 100% sure where we are going, but we think we will be headed right back to where we came from. I’m researching the schooling possibilities, and this may come as a shock to some of you, so hold onto your seats:

I do not plan to home school the boys next year. I will explain more in a far-in-the-future blog post. I’m thankful I got to do this. It has been so ridiculously hard, but it’s also enlightening.

I have been forced to better discipline my children, and of course, that’s always a work in progress. They are people, after all.

I have had to prioritize deeply. I often scold myself for not doing things I would like to be doing, but the fact is that it just wasn’t a priority. The priority was educating and promoting character growth in my boys.

These boys are my charges. It is my duty to lay down everything else, if need be, to ensure that these boys are raised properly. Alan and I take responsibility for the kind of character that they are or are not developing. Even when I’m not home schooling, that will still be our responsibility as parents. 

I’m continuing to read all I can get my hands on about home schooling and learn from other moms who have done this before me! I may do it again, other years, as needed. Meanwhile, it gives me a great feeling of sweet relief to know that I have several options for next year. It makes the next 8 months feel more doable!

God has provided for me each step of the way, and I see His miraculous work in my life everyday. Some people say there are no more miracles. I guess I am ignorant as to why they say that. I hope no one ever informs me because I still see miracles happening, every single time that I see God intervening in my life. To me, that is a miracle.

I hope you all have a miraculously fabulous week.

…6Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.                            Philippians 4:6-7

“And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.”    Colossians 3:15

The post A Quiet House, Thankfulness, and Sweet Relief appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

I’ve been talking a lot about my hermit problem, and I want you all to know that things are getting so much better around here. The boys are finally opening up a little more at tutoring. I had to practically drag them away from there today! Even John David doesn’t cry when I drop him off for the tutoring childcare! We have all met plenty of people that we truly like, and the fact is that I haven’t met one single person here that I can’t find something to like about.

I’m starting to remember. Oh yeah! I do like people!

Transitions are just hard, aren’t they? John David and I seem to have the hardest time with them. Every time I see him pitching a fit over some great new change in his life, I just remind myself, “This child is me.”

Moving across country and beginning home school all at one time was a huge transition. We’re over the hump. We still have rough days. I still make regrettable parenting errors, but I’m feeling hopeful.

That’s why I could never name my blog “Biblical Homemaking” or something like that. Can you imagine the pressure!? Ha!

All it would take was one time for a neighbor to overhear me losing my patience with my family, and I would be completely discredited. Nope. Not trying to act like something I’m not. We’re just a family, trying to do what is best. We listen to God. We make mistakes. We get back up again. 🙂

I have some really great news for you. John David has successfully made the transition to toddler bed!

Oh! Do you see those black out curtains? I’ve been storing those for 3 moves, and they finally came in handy! John David slept until 8 am for three mornings in a row.

I know! I hope you’re okay. Didn’t mean to make anyone choke on their coffee here. I was shocked too…

Happy JD. Happy parents. Sometimes he still wakes up at 1 am for cuddles though. yep. cuddles. I know. You hard-core folks would never put up with such, but hard-core we are not.

I was sitting in his recliner yesterday, and I chuckled at his neediness, “Oh, JD, you are so spoiled,” and as soon as I said it, I felt so sad! This child is not spoiled. This is the FOURTH baby. He rarely gets Mommy to himself. He gets a fraction of the amount of time with me that Joshua, or even Caleb or Daniel, got. With Daniel, I sent the big boys to school, and I was his all day long. JD doesn’t get that, so let the world shake their heads. If my baby needs some 1 am cuddles, then that’s just what he will get.

….And that’s why I have a strict policy about going to bed at 10pm now. It has changed my life! Over Christmas, I did all of that relaxing and sleeping, and I came home feeling like a new person. I decided then and there that I will never kill myself with sleep deprivation, stress, and unrealistic expectations again.

Do you remember my psoriatic arthritis theory and this thumb nail?

Well, it got a whole lot worse than that by Christmas, but guess what. You won’t believe it. My thumb nail is now completely NORMAL.  It’s all GONE!

So is my shoulder pain! You cannot convince me that the two are not related. I am quite sure that stress and sleep made a difference. I don’t want to end up with those nails, popping Advil 800, ever again.

In other news….Apparently, sleep is important to Alan too.

Caleb came home from the Spongebob movie Saturday and said, “Hey, Mom, just to tell you, at Spongebob Squarepants, Dad fell asleep through a lot of it.”

haaaaaaaa I asked Alan about that. He looked a little ashamed. hehehe

Alan and the boys have a few things in common, when it comes to deciding what is interesting and what is not. The other night, they were taking too long to eat their dinner, so I whipped out a magazine article on glaciers and started reading it to Joshua, Caleb, and Alan. Alan protested and started digging around for the Childcraft book on great battles for freedom.

I thought the glacier article was fascinating. Halfway through, I stopped and quizzed them all, “Wow, so what animal lives in this glacier?”

Three blank stares.

Alan said, “No idea. That was boring. Can I read my story now?”

humph!  Caleb said, “Polar bears?”

“No! Didn’t y’all hear me say the part about the little black worms that feed on the invisible algae!!???”

They all sort of giggled and started making worm jokes. I still made them listen to the rest, though. The boys said they liked it, so at least we know they’ve learned to try to make their momma happy!

I wonder if they liked Alan’s story about the Battle of Tours better.

It’s 9:45, so I’d better get to sleep. Guess who is coming to visit this week!!  We are all so excited!!!

As Joshua said, “Aunt Jennings is coming!!  You remember, Caleb, she has the glasses. Don’t you remember? She gave us the Hank the Cowdog books!”

The Hank the Cowdog books are a hit. I even enjoy them!

Hope you all have a great week!   We’ll be having a ball showing Jennings our favorite California spots!

The post Making Transitions and Solving Sleep Problems appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

I can’t believe that frumpy looking mom is me. This is not me. Oh, but it is…oh, but it is.

I don’t know about you, but life definitely goes in cycles for me. I have phases where I’m like, “I got this,” and I wear make-up everyday, exercise regularly, smile at people, have feelings of happiness, and spend time socializing as well as time taking care of home and family. Okay. Well, things are never really all THAT perfect, but I definitely have phases where I am taking way better care of myself than I am right now.

This is not that phase.

This is a learning new things everyday, flying by the seat of my pants phase. We moved across the country and took on home-schooling our four boys for the first time this year. I’m way behind on lesson plans, blogging, housework, and pretty much everything.

My primary focus has been teaching and toddler care, and that just hasn’t left me much time to take care of myself.

I rarely wear make-up. I never exercise. Some days I don’t really even get dressed–not really.

*gasp* the horror!

My eyebrows have not been properly plucked since the road trip in June. That was also my last pedicure. There is one dot of polish left on each of my big toes.

Shake my head.

My wardrobe? Well, I think I wear this t-shirt at least twice/week. It’s a 5K participant t-shirt from 2012. Only I certainly haven’t been running any 5Ks lately…

I was telling my friends at Bible study this week, it’s time for me to become more self-disciplined about going to bed earlier, so that I can wake up earlier. Waking up at 7:15 doesn’t cut it around here.

I don’t completely apologize for letting myself become the grungy homeschool Mom.

For the past few months, I NEEDED to focus on getting my school and my house in order. I only arrived here two weeks before I started our school, and I was not able to spend the summer preparing due to shipping issues. I did what I had to do.

Ecclesiastes 3 King James Version (KJV)

3 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

² A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

³ A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

⁴ A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

⁵ A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

⁶ A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

⁷ A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

⁸ A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

⁹ What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?

¹⁰ I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.

¹¹ He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.

¹² I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life.

¹³ And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.

******

So I’m not going to beat myself up about my current “down to earth”, “laid back” look. However, now that the garage is completely organized, and the school and house are becoming more routine, it’s time to turn my attention to what I’ve been neglecting: me.

I’ve discussed before that when I don’t exercise and rest properly, I have serious back issues. More specifically, I have chronic joint pain. My flare ups started again in 2012, after another phase of self-neglect (Alan’s deployment). A combination of exercise and going to a good chiropractor, helped me to get the joint pain under control. I’ve mentioned that before.

Last week, my shoulder and hip really threw a fit, and I decided it was time to figure out what is causing all this. I got online and made a list of every single one of my symptoms: joint pain on only one side of my body, psoriasis of the fingernails, occasional fevers, and fatigue. It popped up a short list, and I read through until I came across one that sounded EXACTLY like a match. I’d never heard of it before: psoriatic arthritis.

I read a few different web articles on this autoimmune disorder, and it fit my condition perfectly.

Here’s a website reference for the curious:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/psoriatic-arthritis/basics/definition/con-20015006

Thankfully, I do not have psoriasis on my skin, just on a few of my fingernails. My poor fingernails didn’t have a chance because I get really cold, and when I do I get no circulation to my nails because I also have Raynaud’s disease, another autoimmune disorder. Apparently, if you have one autoimmune issue, it’s common to have more than one. Bleh.

Are you wondering what psoriasis of the fingernails looks like on a 33-year-old? Well, here you go:

nail psoriasis

Don’t say,”ew.” Then I might feel really sad.

Groan. And all this stuff says that if you don’t get the psoriatic arthritis under control, it will cause permanent damage to your joints. And yet, it’s incurable. Lovely.

So what’s my action plan? You know I enjoy setting goals:

1. On Monday, call the infamous appointment line to see if I can get a real person to answer my call and make me an appointment. Military clinics. Oh my goodness, those poor, poor people who thought they wanted the government to run their health care…I’ve tried twice already and failed to get anyone to call me back and make me an appointment.

2. Go to bed by 11pm at the latest so I can wake up by 6:30 and go walking in the morning.

3. Wake up by 6:30, and go walk.

4. Make a spa appointment. Yes, spa. It’s been 6 months since I had eyebrows fixed, pedicure, or a hair cut, so I think that’s fair. I may even spring for the massage.

5. Make a chiropractor appointment.

6. Make a dental appointment. Ugh.

Okay, that’s a lot. I probably won’t get all of that done this week, but it’s something to aim for.

Update: I am so thankful I started this back in 2016.

I was wrong about the psoriatic arthritis I had diagnosed myself with. A cardiologist helped me alter my diet and find out the problems were related, but they were not what I thought they were.

I found out that it was eating gluten causing my nails to look that gross. Now that I do not eat gluten, my nails are clear. PLUS, I no longer need a chiropractor or physical therapy. My body does not hurt anymore.

Of course, I’m not carrying around heavy babies anymore either. I wish you could see how much healthier I am now. It is amazing. So yes!! Take care of yourself! Investigate when something seems wrong.

For more on the celiac battle and realizations, see this post.

If you have the gene for celiac, you can develop it at any point in your life. A stressful life phase can switch that gene on, which is what happened to me. People are.meant to do EVERYTHING themselves.

The time to take care of yourself again is now!

The post Frumpy Momma: Why It’s Time to Start Taking Care of Myself Again appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.