Mommy to the Rescue!

Sunday afternoon when I was busy in the kitchen making the birthday cake for Zach's party, I heard a serious cry coming from the boy's room.  I knew that Matt had gone to the bathroom but didn't realize he had made his way into his room.  Upon entering their room, Matthew was standing with the top drawer of his dresser open and both hands stuck behind his back!

When I got closer to investigate, I found that he had gotten an arm in each of the arm holes of this little doll vest.  My guess is that it is one of the girls' American Girl doll vests or it could belong to a similar sized stuffed animal or baby doll.  How he had gotten both arms in past his elbows I do not know.  He did need help to get out and when he was finally free he asked me "Mom, why was this in my top drawer?"

Great question Little One!

Happy 7 Year and 44 Day Birthday to ZACH!

Today is exactly 44 days after Zachary's 7th birthday.  Because of the summer schedule we have not been able to celebrate with our family at Grandpa and Grandma's until today.  It amazes me how Zach has grown and everything we have gone through to get to this milestone.  Not his 7th birthday, but his ability to understand that it is okay to celebrate him even when it is 44 days past his birthday.  He would not have been able to have a "belated" birthday party and "roll with it" so well a couple of years ago.  The only thing that gave us a hint that he may have been a little uncomfortable is that he kept reminding everyone that it wasn't his birthday, it was his birthday party day.

I love being his mom.  There were times there in the beginning when I didn't know if I had the tenacity to handle such a huge responsibility.  I am a little off my game this summer and letting too much Wii going on with everything else happening.  Today though, sitting on the swing with him in the back yard in the coolness of the afternoon we shared some stories and some thoughts and I knew that we are still on track.  As he added / multiplied with me how many cans of black beans we needed to feed 31 people their black beans and rice (his favorite meal) it is easy to see that bright mind and sweet heart.

I am so looking forward to celebrating him as much as he will let me!

Strange Things Happen at Garage Sales

Every year that we have a garage sale, we have said that we should write a book about what we experience while watching and waiting for people to come, shop and ultimately buy our stuff.  I always look at it as being able to bless someone else who may be looking for exactly what we might have at our sale.  This year I would like to give some recognition to some of those people who made this year memorable.

First, the lady who made a deal and got five dollars off her total when she bought the mattress set and the big screen tv together.  Her son was begging her for the tv which my brother was selling.  My brother said he had no idea how long it would last since it is old and so he put $25 on it.  That boy really wanted it.  My dad is a great man.  He loves to see us be able to get rid of some of the things that take up space in our lives and so he is usually happy to help when it comes to delivering if it is not too far away.

True to form, he joined my brother to deliver these two large items.  Those of us who stayed back to man the sale were wondering what was taking them so long when 45 minutes later we still hadn't seen them come back.  Not long after though, the truck and trailer were coming down the road.  Imagine our surprise as it got closer and we saw the television on the back of the trailer.  Poor boy, they tried everything they could to get that big clunky thing shimmied in around two corners and downstairs to his room with no such luck.  I don't know who was more disappointed, the boy, or us!  She returned the next day for her money but did leave us with $10 for the trouble.

Then, there was the man riding his bike with a trailer.  We weren't sure the last time he had bathed and it looked like he may have needed some dental work, but he came and parked his bike and started looking around.  There were a lot of things to look at and he spent quite a bit of time rummaging around looking for the perfect thing.  After about 30 minutes, he found it - a pair of girls tap shoes for 75 cents!  He happily purchased them and tossed them into his trailer and on he went to the next sale.

There was a new phenomenon when my brother Josiah added his homemade costumes to the mix.  They are REALLY good costumes that he makes from scratch.  He had a Sponge Bob, and Angry Bird, Pig and two Ninjagas (blue and red)  He priced them a little higher but they are better than any of those flimsy wear once costumes that you can buy around Halloween time for sure.  There were a few people interested but most who looked had their children put on the costume of their choice, or a couple different ones and their moms or adult chaperons would pull out their cell phones and take pictures.  Huh?  Who knew a garage sale would provide such a great photo op?  Maybe next year a photo booth complete with dress up will be in order.

My favorite sentimental moment was when a young couple came up with their twin girls.  It was the third day and I had put out my Little Tykes kitchen with food.  They walked up and asked if they could get all the food for a reduced price.  I told them the kitchen was $25 and he could have all of the food for $10 making it a total of $35.  He pulled out the cash, paid me, grabbed the kitchen  and food and off they went.  I was remembering almost 11 years ago when my parents brought down the combined 1st birthday present for the triplets and they all were so tiny, like those two little twin girls today.  They gathered around my dad and husband as the two of them built this little kitchen so they could play.  They enjoyed it for many years after that.  And now it can bless another family with fun!

My mom sold our check out table right out from under us this year!  And after all was said and done we got the closest results ever when we added up all of the sticker and the money.  We were only off $5.85!  Now THAT was amazing!  Some years we can be off up to $100 or so!  We just divide it amongst ourselves and call it good.  A couple of the grand kids made over $50!  We had so much fun, we are going to do it again at my house next weekend.  I have only had a chance to go through half of my stuff and so I will spend a lot of time in my basement this week trying to get things priced to sell.  Like I said, I feel lighter lately.  It is a nice feeling.

I love having garage sales, these are just a few of the many stories that I could share.  It is such a weird environment but it is so fun to see what kind of treasure we really have to share!

A Garage Sale Distraction

Things have been crazy around here as we prepared for and executed a successful garage sale at my mom's house.  It was a nice distraction and brought in some money at the same time.  I am happy to announce that I made enough to go into the store this week and pick out new counter tops and possibly a back splash for the kitchen remodel.  Super excited about that!

We are going to put our house on the market after all.  I found this paraphrase from Ecclesiastes and thought it fits so perfectly with what it going on with us right now.  It is never perfect conditions.  Sometimes stepping out in faith is what we have to do.  

So...between now and August 15th (the date of my surgery) I will be busy boxing up things and working to make the place look good.  It was nice when my brother and his family and sister and her family were here tonight, some of them just seeing the new wood floors for the first time.  They were pretty awed by how taking out the huge clunky entertainment center and pulling up the carpet really makes the place look great!

Not to mention the fact that I have boxed up all of the cluttery stuff that I have been trying to reduce in our life for a very long time.  It feels pretty freeing and wonderful to live a little lighter.  I am sure I will be tempted to clutter up stuff in the future.  I just hope I remember how nice it is to live a less cluttered life!

August 15th will be the day of my surgery.  I am certainly NOT looking forward to that day, but I hope that we can have it on the market and ready to show.  Life is going so fast right now...where has the summer gone?  I blinked and here we are!

Cancer Files: Make Mine a Double

Today was plastic surgeon day.  Before I begin, let me say that through this whole situation I am SO incredibly thankful to God for giving me just enough jitters to keep this real and enough calm to be at peace most of the time.  Every time I get into the car to go to a new meeting with whatever doctor I am seeing, I start getting that queezy feeling in my stomach.  The intensity continues to increase as we get out of the car and make our way to the office.  Once in the office I am usually having to intently listen to whatever the doctor is explaining because really, to be honest, most visits are information overload.  I don't seem to get these queezies until appointment time.  The peace of God truly does pass all understanding.

With that said, those queezies calmed right away in the plastic surgeons office.  First things first, he pulls out his little kit of breast implant samples for us to look at, feel and compare.  Nope, no more queezies - it was a little hard not to giggle as he held up the "gummy bear implant" that has just recently come out this past February!  He explained everything with pictures of past patients and testimonials of their success and happiness upon completion.

Then we talked about my specific situation and the questions I had along with the things that I should keep in mind as we make this decision.  Do we want an implant, two implants?  Or, do we want to use my own body's tissue?  Research it if you would like, I won't go into all of the details here, but there are amazing things they can do with the human body to help women get through this very stressful transition.

So, what did we decide?  Well, pros and cons considered, we are going with a double mastectomy with tram flap reconstruction.  It is a more involved surgery and longer recovery time but in the long run, it gives me the best chance to get all of the bad stuff out of there and not have to go through this again down the road on the other side.  There will be minimal returns to the doctors office in years ahead and my body won't have to get used to "foreign" objects as body parts.

I won't lie, I am ready to get this done and move on.  I asked the question of the nurse today if there would be ANY chance that I would still have to do radiation or chemo when all this is over.  She said more than likely not but we will know after the pathology comes back.  I am at peace with this decision and look forward to being on the other side of the surgery day which I will find out when the nurse gives me a call back in the next couple of days.  I told her it needs to happen sometime between August 3rd (when my cousin Buck and his beautiful bride Jen get married) and August 27th, the first day of school.  My goal is to be far enough along in my recovery to be able to stand up straight and see the kids off on their first day.  Let's see if the docs get their schedules together to accommodate me!

A Little Quiz...for Fun

Here is a fun little extra...I was looking through some of my digital scrapbook pages and few years back after Matthew was born I put together this fun page.  I could still pass the test, some of you who know them well can see how you do!

The Important Stuff: Super Mario Brothers

Since our appointment with the surgeon was moved to Wednesday, there is nothing much to report or think about in the area of my health today.  So, we focused on a very important project to three of our family members this evening.  It was so much fun to get out all of my 1 1/2 inch squares again to puzzle together some more Mario Brother's quilt blocks!  Matthew was thrilled to help since he has practiced his "pattern power" with Milli Measure!

Tonight the goal was to stick together the squares for the three remaining blocks we haven't tried yet.  That would be the question box, Yoshi, and a turtle shell.  Once I finished them I started wondering if I could figure out a pattern for a banana peel.  I think the boys would really love that!  I did come up with a Toad pattern so I think I will play around with a banana peel pattern before I say we are done with all of the characters and elements for these quilts.  I think they will be great!  I tweeked the Yoshi pattern a little bit.  Neither Stacey or I were completely happy with the pattern as it was.  Much better now!

I have one of each of the other squares sewn and ready to soak in water to remove the sticky stuff (I like to think of it as the stuff that keeps me sane through this project!)  Zach will have a quilt soon at this rate.

I love creating...in this case, taking little tiny squares of fabric and watching my boys' eyes light up when they see the characters appear before their eyes.  It impresses the little boys more than Ryan, he just hopes I get his done before he moves out of the house!  This is a fun project!