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Thursday, August 30, 2012

Just The Right Time

It was the day that we ended up bringing my Mom home from the hospital, but at the time we thought it would be the day she was going to be transferred to a Rehab Facility. 

I was running on fumes, exhausted, and with little patience left for my own family. In general, I don't like talking on the phone, let alone calling Doctors offices/ Insurance companies. This day was filled with stressful news, dealing with ornery people and one particularly nasty person that left my Mom shaken. 
How I dealt with this person with any grace and dignity is only the 
power of God protecting His own name that I represent. 

I called Craig when I came home around noon and updated him on that mornings "activities." I told him how I couldn't calm down, I was so enraged by the situation and the stress that person had brought on during such a fragile time. I tried to pray but felt like I couldn't think beyond my anger at the moment. It just felt flat. 

The phone rang and it was a local Pastor friend returning a business related phone call. It ended with him praying for me, for my Mom and even for Abigail's health on the phone. 

You see, Abigail's body is battling something inside these past several weeks and we are trying to figure it out. Just 5 days before my Mom's surgery we had to bring Abigail in and start her on meds, left lingering with questions unanswered until we see her specialist. Her surgery was not even two months before, we hoped we were in the clear and maybe {just maybe} we could start to relax a bit and not be on guard. 

So technically, yeah I was a little bit of a mess before my Mom's surgery, and then she had complications and at this point, this moment when he called I was anticipating my Mom going to rehab for at least another week +. 

So he called. He prayed. He shared his hearts concern for our family during this time. 
Then he shared God's promises.

 I was just wrapping my mind around God's promise that we have hope in heaven. That one day there will be no more pain and suffering. I shared here how life-giving that Scripture is to me right now and I was clinging to that hope for dear life, pleading for a glimpse of it on behalf of my Mom and Abigail. 

I felt the weight, the burden of anger lift from me as he prayed God's Truth and Peace. I chose to accept it and pleaded with God for some breakthrough, this can't be the day that I breakdown. "I can't break, I need You to hold me up" became my prayer. And He did. 

He used a humble servant of His to call and speak the words needed to be like a healing ointment to my weary self that day. It was also a reminder that God could use me like that. I need to be ready, prepared to pray with someone, even on the phone during a business-related phone call. Spontaneous prayer, pleading with God on someone elses behalf with them is sometimes necessary and He calls us to be ready. 

That day, it was just what I needed. Jesus reached down and poured into my heart through the obedience of another Believer boldly being willing and ready to intercede in prayer with me. 

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

The Latest On My Mom- Post-Op

Earlier today my Mom said she was going to read the "latest" on my blog... I told her that there wasn't. I hadn't posted anything in the two weeks since she came home. 

It has been a busy and crazy two weeks around here. The first week she returned home from her surgery (one week post-op) was insane with home care visits, meds round the clock at least every 3 hours, maintaining a house and feeding 6 people, chasing a toddler and caring for my Mom. 

As I talked about here, the anticipation leading up to her surgery was much like what I experienced pre-op with my own child just two months earlier. And can I tell you something else? The anxiety/ stress/ anticipation AFTER my Mom's surgery, during her (unfortunately longer than expected) week stay at the hospital and then that first week having her home was so much more emotionally invading than I would have imagined. I thought, "I have done this before with Abigail, I can do it again." The reality is, it was much like my own kid having surgery. I couldn't sleep at night, I'd wonder if my Dad woke up to give her her meds, I'd worry that I forgotten to put out some of her meds and I would lay awake in bed wondering if she was sleeping through the night or waking up in pain. 

This lady has gone through the fire with her surgery and recovery. 

Abigail brought drinks outside for her and Mimi and held her hand to "help" her walk around the yard!

When we took her home just two weeks ago she could hardly walk 5 feet to her hospital bathroom, needing the assistance of a walker while she gasp for breath in the midst of shooting pain. She is still suffering from pain and other frustrations that will subside in time, but seriously I am amazed. 

The recovery is predicted to take 4-6 months, and while she feels like she takes 2 steps forward then 1 step back, she really is making incredible progress. We have been so blessed by the counter-top full of cards she has received, several bouquets of flowers and the 8 meals that were brought to us over just 11 days during that critical time when we first got her home. We are thankful for community, for our families and friends and even strangers. THANK YOU

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

New Every Morning

Over the past several days, I have watched my Momma in agony. Being her health advocate and voice dealing with medical people/ workers comp is heart wrenching and draining. I see the fruit of how God has grown me over the past 2+ years as I have dealt with countless medical professionals and insurances with Abigail's health. It has prepared me for this, which even a week ago I didn't expect. 

It wasn't until last Thursday, the day after my Mom's surgery, that one of God's promises hit me-
 Revelation 21:4 "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain..."

I don't think about heaven much. Yes I believe in it, that it is real and that we have hope in eternal life through Jesus' redemption. I believe the Gospel and have hope in it. But during this time, I cling to that hope in heaven more than I ever have before, that one day we won't experience pain. One day my Momma and Abigail will be restored to whole health and newness because of the Cross. Because of our faith in Jesus, he has promised us this in heaven. This is only our temporary home. 

And to get us through until then, when it "hurts real bad" as Abi says, we have this hope to cling to. 

Lamentation 3:22-23
Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. 
They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.


"My hope is in you Lord all day long..." Aaron Shust -My Hope Is In You


Sunday, August 12, 2012

MimiCakes

Abigail has taken to calling my Mom's pancakes MimiCakes. It is pretty much the most adorable thing ever. 

Back in April I was craving some of my Mom's famous pancakes so we made a special trip to her house early that morning for some homemade pancakes with REAL NH maple syrup ;)

She has quite the talent in pancaking (fyi: that means pancake making) and has all of our different tastes to keep up with. Some of her kids like fresh blueberries, some corn, another one likes it still raw in the middle, but me, I like mine plain with real maple syrup. If there are fresh strawberries and real whipped cream to top it, oh my! You have just spoken my love language for breakfast, lunch or dinner. 


"cheese"
Today, our Mimi-Cakes were different than the pancake version. To love on my Momma in a way that Abigail knows how to, we baked. We made a sweet batch of Funfetti cupcakes with blue cream cheese and whipped cream frosting (from scratch). Abi and I, we LOVE our cupcakes. So we baked up some love to bring to Mimi tomorrow morning in the hospital.


Thursday, August 9, 2012

How Her Garden Grows

This is our 3rd summer gardening. 

Year #1- in pots at our apartment. (a very small garden)

Year #2- we dug out a small 5 X 5 plot in our yard at the apartment and grew some snap peas, winter squash, sunflowers. 
I planted an assortment of beans, yellow squash, zucchini, tomatoes, flowers at my parents house in their old gardens we used growing up.

Year #3- all of my gardening was done at my parents house. What wasn't planted in May... well just didn't get planted. Some things like green beans, kale, misc lettuces, herbs went into the garden. 

Then my Dad cut down a ton of trees because they were blocking out the sunlight. 
He built up a big dirt wall for privacy... it was ugly. 
So I planted corn and sunflowers along the top and an entire packet of winter squash all in the hill. 
Then my Mom planted wild flower seeds.
And my Dad planted our tomato, pepper and eggplant plants along the bottom. 

It was neglected during the months of June and July and grew like the wild does. The weeds that is. 
The plants grew too. But some of these pictures are AFTER weeding began. We were ripping up weeds 1/4 - 1/2 inch in diameter and as tall as I am! It was insane.

While my Dad is pulling up what I thought was a bush he planted (ahem, no. It was WEEDS) he said
"These weeds are like sin. They have grown so tall and even pretty looking that you can't even recognize which are the plants and which are the weeds."
AMEN. 

We are joyfully weeding the heck out of our hill. It's like the opposite of that British movies title "The man who went up a hill and came down a mountain." This was a mountain of weeds. Now that they are almost gone, the hill seems rather small. 

I have learned a few things about weeds
a) keep up with it
b)  it is a great total body work out, especially doing it on an incline!

Abigail helping me plant green beans that we are now eating!
Tomatoes and winter squash

Eggplant

LOTS of butternut squash

Our hill of a garden

a 5-headed sunflower!! Woweee!
Weeding... a few months too late.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

My Momma's Surgery

Last week we experienced some health hiccups for Abigail. It's always scary when you think something is over and that nightmare of an issue come knocking again. 

My Mom was in the waiting room while I spent a good hour + in the doctors office with Abigail. 

Just yesterday my Mom and I talked about that whole ordeal and the many moments too-similar that we have experienced with Abigail's health. (It is the scariest job being a parent) 

Apparently it is even more scary for a parent to watch their child agonize over their OWN child. 

Abigail and Meme the day before, soaking their feet for some homemade pedicures.
Right now I'm experiencing something a little different, but the pain/ stress/ anxiety feels the same. 

My own Momma is having surgery right now. Abigail's surgery was just 2 months and one day ago. Then my best friend living allll the way in Texas gave her kidney to her husband less than 2 weeks after that. My heart has never been so heavy with medical issues affecting those closest to me. 

But my Momma, the strongest person I know, has been in severe back pain for about 10 months now due to an injury. The first time I saw her use her cane was at my sisters Bridal Shower back in June. I felt a weird mix of emotions ranging from sympathy to anger. Seeing your parent get older, sick, or even dying is hard to process. 

And here we are today with all those strange emotions bubbling up. The scariest part to me is the anesthesia. The greatest hope I have is that this will relieve her back pain and she will be able to return to "normal" life after she recovers. The part that upsets me most is that they will be putting metal rods in her back. (Why it makes me angry, I don't know, it's just upsetting)

It's hard being someones child, watching them in pain for all these months, resulting in surgery and the recovery process isn't going to be easy for her either. It's going to be difficult before it gets better. 

So in the past two months I've been the Mom watching my kid recover from surgery and now I'm the kid that will be watching my Mom recover from surgery. Honestly, these two roles feel similar. Heightened anxiety the week leading up to it, sleepless nights, wanting to cling tight and separate myself both at the same time. 

Maybe you have been in this boat before for your kid, parent or loved one. Maybe you handled it like a champ. Maybe you cried every night because you had no idea what you were doing or how you should be "feeling" about it.

Say a prayer for my Mom. If you aren't reading this today, the day of her surgery, pray anyway. She has a few months of recovery ahead of her.

This is the ultimate hope that I cling to when I'm unsure of everything else:

2 Corinthians 4:7-9

 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.

Monday, August 6, 2012

Operation: Rescue the Baby Birds!

Our toddler's favorite show these days is Wonder Pets. She was pretty thrilled when we had the chance to scoop up these tiny birds and rescue them.

My mom stumbled upon them in her garden. 
3 baby birds.
With two swooping Robin birds, one with a worm in its mouth, along with a few Blue Jay's, we weren't sure who they belonged to or why they were on the ground. 

A phone call to our local Animal Rescue and another to the Bird Sanctuary where they eventually went told us that they were in fact Robin birds and the Blue Jay's were harassing the parents until they won the fight. It was loud and sad to hear this battle over the baby birds. We took them inside, let them calm down a bit, fed them some blueberry guts with tweezers and then brought them to a bird respite house that would rehab them and bring them to the bird sanctuary. 

I have to tell you, being a Mom and seeing those Robin birds fighting for their babes left me sleepless that night. A few hours of nurturing and bonding with these babies made my heart-sick for them all the next day.

It was such a great experience for Abigail and a sweet little surprise for the whole family as we all became part of Operation: Rescue the Baby Birds!





My oldest nephew Brandon and I feeding the birds mashed blueberries

Saturday, August 4, 2012

YES!



We (Cwtrials) have had the awesome opportunity to do 4 different events with Life! Church in Hooksett, NH all in July. Our most recent event was something new and different for us. And incredibly fun.

This church meets in a movie theater and Craig was asked to ride/ speak at their Sunday morning service during their YES! series. Extreme Biking at Church? Complete with popcorn and juice boxes? Heck yes!


I especially like this church for their use of "!" in their name and current series. 
Doesn't everything end in a "!"?!


It was by far the tightest space Craig has ever ridden the demo set on. But he is incredibly talented and was spectacular!

Abi-Bear watching her "Daddy ride trials at church"
Craig and Pastor Joe Cyr during Q &A
Don't be too bummed that you missed it because you can catch the video of the ENTIRE thing right here.

Craig always has a disclosure "don't do this at home," so of course he received a picture that day of a man from the church on this roof with his bicycle. We got a laugh out of it (and assumed it was a joke...)


Friday, August 3, 2012

Picketty Pick!

Abigail and I have gone blueberry picking  3  4 times this summer. I'm hoping to squeeze in as much fruit-picking as we can this season so we can stock up the deep freezer! 
(And since we keep eating them by the handful!)


LOVE sheep!

My dream- not to own a lawn-mower but one of these guys to eat our grass for us.
This kid is going to turn blue from all of her berries she has eaten. And if you want to know how helpful a 2 year old is as a second pair of picking hands... well, she eats them off the tree, from my bucket, puts a few in her bucket then eats them... and maybe one time she dumped an entire hour and a half worth of pickings onto the ground and maybe this Momma spent too much time picking up as many as she could from that heaping pile on the ground.

In a nutshell- is it REALLY worth taking a 2 year old picking? YES. 
Just don't set your goals/ hopes too high. 

The best part for her is the sheep and goats she gets to visit afterward. Love my little Farmer Girl.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Stored Away :(

Abi and I having our quiet time on the porch with our journals

It has been almost 2 weeks since we packed up our entire home of 2 1/2 years and stuffed it into a storage unit. There was a bit of lack of communication as to what was going to our temporary home and what was going into storage. 

30 minutes of trying to get the door to the storage unit closed, we realized that Craig's bag containing most of his clothes were shoved in the back of the storage unit. Along with my box with my most precious belongings, 2 of my 3 journals and Bible. It would be an afternoon affair to unload, sort and find our things, then to repack the puzzle of our storage unit. 

Sad. My books, namely my mini Bible and journal, are like my security blanket (or pacifier to Abigail...) I feel at a loss for these simple little treasures. 

We found enough clothes for Craig and I steal away with my Mom's little Bible or Craig's smartphone with my YouVersion app on . 

(A note on our house. We were approved by the sellers bank for the short sale over 4 weeks ago. Still waiting for a closing date with no predictions on when that will be. Praying that we will be able to move in settle any day now... or at least before Thanksgiving!)