The Safest Place to Be...

After a week of traveling all over the country I came home and was blessed two spend two of the best days with my little men!! I had surprises planned for each day...and we had a wonderful time uncovering each of them as the day went.  Watching life through the eyes of my boys can often be the most relaxing enjoyable part of my day. And last Mon and Tuesday were no exception. We laughed a lot, talked alot and loved alot! It was wonderful. I relished in the memories being made and the conversations we had. It was a special time just the three of us.  Chad had too work and was bummed he couldn't be with us but he was taking off last Thursday to go out of town and had to tie up lose ends at work. Wed I worked from home and Thursday ended up back in the ER....an hour from home.   Never a dull moment...I was driving to my office in city and breathing became hard quickly..I had been having shortness of breath since Monday but I chalked it up to traveling across the country and my body readjusting to the weather..no biggie right? Wrong...luckily there was a fantastic hospital 7 miles from where I pulled over and Chad stayed on the phone with me until I got to the ER. The doctors were amazing and after doing a chest ct they said I had the start of pneumonia...yikes! I had pneumonia 8 years ago and never thought for a minute I would get it again...especially so quick. So after staying in the hospital all day I left for home that evening...only to talk to my Dr. the next day who said after reviewing my test she thought my lungs showed emphysema changes...yikes again.. I know nothing about emphysema other than people who smoke often get it... (i don't)... The latter part of last week consisted of breathing treatments, meds, and steroids to help remove the inflammation from my lungs... This weekend was rough and i'm just worn down..but praise the Lord I saw my dr again today and she did more x-rays and confirmed I have plearacy and no emphysema...so I am so glad...tired..exhausted...but thankful. 

Chad was gone during all of this...he was actually heading to the airport while I was at the ER but I told him to go...I knew that I would be ok and I was...but exhaustion over took me this weekend. Nen(my sister who lives with us) was a blessing and helped out so much... I was sad because one of our sweet friends had a bridal shower this weekend and her batchlorette party but we couldn't go...BUT the bride to be ( a dear friend of my sisters) and two of the other girls came by to say hi yesterday. And while I frankly wasn't up for company and just wanted to sleep Beth said something to me that brought a huge wave of peace. She was talking about moving to Haiti in May... Her fiance is Haitian and they met when she went there with our church to work with the orphanages we support... Anyhow my sister was asking her if she felt safe living by herself until she got married and her response " The safest place I can be is in His Will and as long as I'm there I'm ok".... Words of wisdom my friends..humbling words...God knew I needed to hear them and boy did they bless me to the core.  So I have been relishing in those words since yesterday and praying fervently....praying for peace and understanding that only He can bring.. If you read my blog often I'm sure you've noticed a trend over the past six months...Health issues galore...one thing after the other and during my prayer time this weekend I specifically asked Him are you telling me to move elsewhere?  I don't know the answers but I do know this...I am thankful for Beth and for the Lord's words that covered my heart.. I'm thankful that I am "In His will".....and am praying for guidance....which I know He will provide as He always has. Now I must open my ears, BE STILL and Listen.... Blessings

From Seattle to South Carolina

This week has been crazy but amazing in the same breath. Last Friday my little man's fever spiked to 104.3 and I was a wreck! I was supposed to leave the next morning at 8am to fly to Seattle for business and I was a mess... on one line I had the nurse on call and the other was my travel agent trying to see if I could move my flight to Sunday. Did I mention is was 12am? I was in bed surround by tissues because I couldn't stop crying..I felt like a horrible mom..Noah's temp had returned to normal the day before and he seemed to be on the upswing so leaving seemed ok.  Don't get me wrong me being worried about leaving had nothing to do with the fact that Chad would be home with the boys and Nen (my sister who lives with us)... He's amazing! He knows their schedules better than I do at times and we are truly partners in parenting and everything else. I have no concerns that He can't handle being the boys on his own...it's more of me as a working mom struggling to balance work and not being there for my boys when they need.  I want to be the one to cuddle with my sick son...I want to make sure he is ok and lay on the couch all day and watch episodes of dinosour train..so when his fever spiked and he was in a ball on a sheet in his room...the thought of leaving him tore me apart. Bless Chad's heart he kept assuring me everything would be ok...and long story short it was.  We stayed up all night giving Noah tsp of water at a time and sponging him down to help the fever lower..and it did.  So within the next three hours I shoved clothes in my suitcase and went to the airport...puffy eyes and all. I'm sure I was a sight:) That morning Chad took both boys to see our pediatrician...as I had been in constant conversation with him daily about Noah and Ky's croup..and come to find out poor Ky had a double ear infection and they confirmed Noah did not have anything worse than a very bad case of the flu. Within a couple of hours his temp was back to normal and he was able to keep liquids and solids down.

     And off to Seattle I went.  And God is Good!!! It was a four hour flight and I slept for the first hour and a half and ENJOYED the rest of it... Yes, you are hearing me right..i enjoyed it and praised Him the whole way. This was the first time since I can remember that I enjoyed a flight and had no fear/anxiety. I landed grabbed my car found a starbucks worked a bit and then went to see my dear friend, Dee and her husband Sobes.  Dee was one of my best friends in highschool and we went to college together in Seattle.  It has been nine years since I've seen here and and to we had grown apart over the years.  I was a little nervous about how it would be connecting after all of that time.  And then I met her husband and saw her and we picked right back up where we left off.  It was the best weekend! She is expecting her first baby on July 4th and we talked about babies and my favorite baby things all weekend long. We caught up on life and truly enjoyed just hanging out. Monday I started with my business meetings right away and it was a packed but great day. Tuesday I went to a conference at the EMP and it was awesome! Very informative and I even got to test drive some EV cars....Wednesday am I headed back to the airport for a 6am flight home and landed in Chicago around one..made it home by 4 picked up the boys for 5:00 haircuts..loved on them and read them one of their books I brought back for them....tucked them in..did some laundry and repacked my luggage.  And the next morning woke up at 4am and headed back to the airport for another 8:00 flight. This time to South Carolina.

     I landed in SC around 11:00 headed to another Starbucks to get some work done (see a trend:)..) and then headed to our SC office for an afternoon of meetings.  I always stay at the same hotel and have my favorite resteraunts that I frequent and even request the same waiter every time. It was a great evening...I returned to my hotel early and cranked out work until the wee hours and started all over again yesterday. My day ended around 5:30 and then the real fun began... I have family that lives about an hour from our SC office and I try to see them every time I'm in town..this time being no exception... I arrived at my aunt and uncles surrounded by my cousin, her husband, and amazing kids, and my Grams. Their hospitality is always amazing and they had platters of appetizes and wine...followed by an amazing meal...and we Laughed so hard all night!!! I'm staying at my cousins and we are just hanging out today and having family dinner tonight. Tomorrow am I head back home and CAN'T wait...The boys are on spring break this week and I'm off on Monday and Tuesday to spend some amazing time with the boys and do something fun and exciting...although i haven't quite figured out just what special things we are going to do...but I am throwing a couple of ideas around. :) And I forget to mention the other great part...so normally I fly into Charlottle when I come to SC because of my "fear" of flying...flying into GSP entails of flying on a jet and based on my horrible experience last summer I have avoided flying into that airport like the plague.  Well this time I took a leap of faith and flew into GSP and it was hilarious because the jet I flew on had one seat on the left and two on the right and maybe 15 rows back...yep the smallest of the small...and again I enjoyed my flight. God is good. I kept reporting the verse over and over... I will not let harm come to your life ...and every day is a blessing. :) It helped.  So now I'm going to enjoy the warm weather..i'm in capris and sandles ( and realized this morning just how desperately I need a pedi) My feet are a sight haha... Oh well. Have a wonderful Sat!

Prayful Wednesday

I'm exhausted...i'm not even going to lie or try and add fluff to how I feel today. This week has been "interesting"... Good news I graduated from my boot yesterday and am not in a brace for the next three weeks...and I can drive!! PTL...because me and my independent self was having major patience issues waiting for that thing to get off..  But to add to the stress Ky has croup yet again and Noah came down with a fever at school yesterday and it spiked to 104.5 this morning at 1am. I'm beat..work is nuts and i'm leaving on Sat for a week, minus my 12 hour layover back at home on Wednesday with enough time to drop in from the airport repack my luggage, get haircuts for all of us and take of Thursday am at 6am.  Did I mention I hate to fly and have already been in prayer rebuking the devil? I have to fly out to Seattle which is a four hour flight and I usually top out at 1.5 hours on my "normal" flights..

So today i'm working from home, trying to get laundry down ( it never is:)..) attend to my sick boys, come up with my bi monthly grocery list, keeping in mind that Chad will be cooking meals all next week, and go through my to do list before Friday. Yikes! Did I mention I'm exhausted? Oh and to add to the list of health issues (which seems to be never ending) I had a CT done yesterday due to my constant ringing in my left ear and that came back ok..so now I have to wait for two weeks and will see an ENT and have audiology testing done.  My prayer for April is that I am healthy and don't have to visit the hospital once...We'll see how that goes:)

For all of your prayer warriors out there please in be prayer that God will put his healing hand on our family from all of this sickness/health issues, give me peace about flying, and calm my spirit as I finish out the rest of the week.  I would greatly appreciate it!Blessings!

And then there was ice... :)

So much for my signs of spring blog! Last week ice came pouring down literally...so on Monday instead of making it to the city I turned around and drove home...well to my mom's house actually. I decided to work at her house until lunch and then I was going to head home...It all happened so fast. My mom said "oh no there goes my garbage can in the street" my little sis and I picked straws and I won (we didn't really pick straws :)..) and I headed out the front door to go get the can and fell down the steps covered with ice and when I fell my right leg landed funny on the concrete with a snap I knew something was wrong.... My ears started to ring and I ended up rolling around in the ice in pain screaming..yep that's how it started. I wasn't even sure how I was going to make it to the car but somehow I did and once at the hospital found out I tore a tendon in my foot and sprained my ankle..the swelling was bad so they put it in a wrap and said to use the boot once the swelling went down and sent me on my way with crutches. Here's where it gets even better. The next morning at 4 am I get up with my crutches to go to the bathroom and my crutches went one way and I fell again on the same leg just the other side and screamed out in pain again. It woke my little men up who came piling in the bathroom to go to the bathroom and head back to bad while i'm laying there on the floor..lol I can laugh about it now but it must have been a sight. So back to the hospital we go and more x-rays later I now damaged soft tissue and damaged nerves on the right side of the same foot. So now i'm in a boot for at least three weeks and did I mention it's on my driving foot? Yeah so i'm not happy..I was just back into my workout regiment and getting two great workouts in everyday and now ugh. My favorite phrase from Chad last week was ..." I take you for worse and worse"... I know he was joking but that's how it feels at the moment.

Besides that things are going relatively well. The boys are loving their swimming lessons and I'm having a blast watching them. They had a wonderful few days at home with Chad while I went on a business trip to MN..boot at all.  My good friend ended up driving me and enjoying the time away and I had a packed schedule of meetings but it was a success. We found this awesome winery on the way back and I brought home eight bottles of wine to share... And here it is Tuesday and i'm already looking forward to the weekend. I'm hoping it comes fast! I'll have to post pics soon...I did find some awesome Lego headlamps for the boys at MOA and they are a hit..so much so that they came in our room with them on at 5:45 Sun morning. It made my day! Sorry for all of the rambling but I guess that's life at the moment.