Christmas- another reason I am not totally frugal

I know, it's still technically October, why the heck am I talking about Christmas!

Well, because I just read something that disturbed me. I read about a family who, in the name of frugality is planning to do a "gently used" Christmas theme this year.

Ok. When I was a kid we were dirt poor. Shit, most months we couldn't even afford dirt. We lived on the amount of cash most people spend on starbucks in a month. A lot of my frugality has come from this upbringing. And I think I learned some wonderful lessons only poverty can teach a person.

As a kid there were a lot of things I simply could not have because there was no feasible way to buy them and still keep food on the table. But the one thing I could look forward to every single year was Christmas. I started fantasizing about Christmas around about July every year, and when the Sears Wishbook would come out my sister and I would spend hours carefully marking our initials next to every wonderful toy we hoped we would get.

The one thing my mother always made sure of was that although she couldn't buy us designer jeans for our first day of school or take us to Disney land in the summer she always did everything in her power to make sure that when we woke on Christmas morning there were a plethora of carefully wrapped gifts under the tree, lik a picture straight out of a magazine. Hours were spent carefully opening each gift and finding toys that we had been wishing for all year. We would wait patiently while my mom carefully removed barbie accesories from the packages. One for me, one for my sister. We called our friends and cousins and exchanged excited lists of what "santa" had brought us.

There is something to be said about getting things that were carefully purchased for you. I can't imagine the same thrill coming from a gift that was bought simply because it was a good deal at a garage sale, something someone had their fill of and tossed in the quarter bin.

I myself find a great sense of enjoyment in carefully listening to my kids' subtle hints and making my shopping lists. My husband and I have a wonderful time in the stores purchasing the perfect gifts for each child. Watching them open their own brand new toys they have waited for on Christmas morning brings us such immense joy it's indescribable.

I do think this country is far too commercialized. Products are overpriced and over advertised. I think making statements in your actions by being frugal are important. And I definitely think that children need to learn the value of a dollar. But there is something to be said for watching a child open that gift they wished for all year long but never dared to hope they'd get.

I choose to protect the magic of Christmas that only comes once a year. Let kids be kids and enjoy that one day, without worry. Knowing they meant enough to sacrifice your hard earned money on. Looking back I don't know how my mom did it, but the fact that she did, the sacrifice she must have faced to give us that special day....... brings tears to my eyes.

Because I like pictures

And to think 20 years ago...

How far medicine has come. 20 years ago, heck probably 10 years ago we'd be having a funeral now.

Last Friday one of my mom and her "significant other" for lack of a better term lost one of their new, $500 + Angus calves. The thing went psycho and busted through both the electric and the barbed wire fences and off it went. They spent hours that night looking for it, to no avail. The next day George noticed he was tired but didn't think much of it.

Wednesday night as I was working in urgent care my friend called me and told me that my mom had been trying to get ahold of me. My cell phone was in the car so I asked her to call my mom back and tell her to call me at the hospital. It turns out George had been not feeling well at work and went home and was now sweating and having chest pain. I told my mom to call 911 and a bit later the ambulance arrived at our hospital.

I finished up my paperwork and went up to ED where I overheard the doctor talking about a helicopter. OMG........ I was right, he was having a heart attack

They flew him to an acute care hospital and about 40 minutes from the time he was in the ambulance he was in the cardia cath lab having his main coronary artery, which was 100% occluded, cleared.

He went home Saturday....

How amazing.

What is faith

My faith is being tested in a huge way lately. It isn't due to an incident in particular, I just find myself once again questioning my faith. With the heartache that we have endured it has become increasingly difficult lately for me to beleive that a fair, just god exists. I am struggling to understand why such a God allows the things to happen that have happened to us, to those around us, and to the many people we don't even know who walk the same path of torturous grief we have and do. I struggle to understand how the God the bible tells us about can sit back and allow the things that go on in the world to occur, day after day.

I grew up in church learning about God as a peaceful protector who accepts us and our faults and guides us as we travel through this life. But to be honest, I don't feel I've seen a whole lot of that God. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for my family, for my home, and the things we DON'T struggle for, but so many others do... and that I can't comprehend. I guess I'm just finding it increasingly difficult to put blind faith into a God who it seems has abandoned me when I've needed him the most.

I don't expect that life will always grant me what I ask for. I know it doesn't work that way. I understand that life's lessons are just that, and without struggle a person can't fully learn and accept.

I use to consider myself Pagan. Not Wiccan, Pagan. No voodoo or spells or any of that but a wonderful appreciation for the world around us and what it provides us. I have always beleived in reincarnation and evolution, beliefs that have left me confused with what I was taught about God and Christianity.

I just don't know if I'm cut out to blindly beleive that there is a man in the sky making all the decisions for my life and the lives around us. I know, free will and all that jazz but in the end, really if Christianity is correct, at least the way I've been taught it.... we don't have much free will at all.

I also have trouble with the ideal that the mistakes we make in life's lessons ultimately dictate whether we spend eternity in a place of wonderful enlightenment, or in a place of dispair. I have trouble with the notion that there's some terrifying ex-angel who lives on misery in a place of fire and terror. I have trouble with not being able to truly learn from my experience for fear of whether or not the guy aloft will deem me unfit for heaven and cast me into the depths of hell.

You know what I have trouble with the most? I have trouble understanding why this all powerful wonderful being would take my child and the children of others and keep them in heaven away from us by choice. Face it, God can do anything God wants. The other day the kids and I were watching Pet Sematary (I know, bad mother of the year award!) and the part came on where the little girl asks "Daddy? God could bring Gage back if he WANTED to, can I have faith in THAT"? And it made me think. Yes, by all accounts God could do that. This just and fair and loving God that we devote our lives to COULD, for all accounts end much of the suffering here on earth should he choose to. But he doesn't. He doesn't EVER do that. Even when we do everything we can to follow him and have faith in him and love him. He doesn't take what would be such simple steps for him and stop our misery.

He doesn't. And I'm not sure he can, because I'm not sure he exists. Maybe we beleive because we are afraid that if we have nothing to beleive in we will have to face that death might really be the end. We have to face the thought that there may not be a heaven with streets paved in gold waiting for us at the end of all of this. We might have to face the fact that WE are the only people who decide where our lives go and what turns we will take.

And maybe that's just too much responsibility for us to take.

Walk to remember

Saturday we kicked off the OB bereavement group at our hospital with the first annual Walk to remember. There was a really good turn out! We walked the beautiful path behind the college and let leaves go in the river as a symbolic gesture to letting go of some of our pain. The kids had a great time rolling down the hill before it started. Sadly I forgot my camera (I know!) so didn't get any pictures of the day. Our first OB bereavement support meeting for anyone who has lost a baby in pregnancy or infancy is November 12th at 7pm if anyone is in the area and would like to attend let me know!

I was feeling kind of sad because the bereavement groups will be on the same nights as my prenatal class so I talked to Tracy about it and, the angel that she is, had already been thinking about a solution to that! So it looks like I'll still be able to do both! Woohoo!

A friend of mine is in the process of building a house with Habitat for Humanity, and is blogging the experience in pictures, if you'd like to show your support (and see some pics of some really cute kids helping) check her out! www.photographingmama.blogspot.com

vacation pics ----- number somethin

Be sure to look at the 10 or so posts before this for ALL our vacation pics (I'm a little camera happy, sorry!) Click on any picture for a larger version!

Vacation pics part --umm i lost count

vacation pics part 8

vacation pics part 7

Vacation pics part 6

vacation pics part 5

vacation pics part 4

vacation pics part 3

Vacation pictures part 2

Vacation pics part 1

crazy busy

So, obviousely wer'e back from vacation and jumped headfirst back into life. Sorry for the lapse in posting, i'm on day 4 of a 7 day stretch at work, blah. I have the weekend off though so be on the lookout for vacation pics!

It was absolutely wonderful and I think a lot of healing took place. The kids were very open in talking about Alex and the first day we were there Alex's song came on the radio (that was piped through the entire house). It was one of those moments where everyone just stopped what they were doing and looked at the person nearest them with a common understanding. We had a lot of moments like that.

Oh, and by the way. I'm slightly offended that I only have 3 "followers" over there on the sidebar. A little birdie tells me that WAY more people than that read my blog on a daily basis (and email me when I slack off! Thanks!) so why are you not over there? hmmm? I'll have you know that I might just die if I have to live life with only 3 followers..... so if you can sleep at night knowing that by all means...........

Of course I wont' die. But I might spiral into a deep depression forcing me to eat nothing but Reese's peanut butter cups for months on end causing me to balloon up to 780 lbs and need someone to wash the sludge out of my creases. I'm just sayin...

more fun while we're on vacation- Wednesday

myspace background

More fun while we're on vacation- Tuesday

see more pwn and owned pictures





see more pwn and owned pictures

Some fun while we're on vacation- Monday

see more pwn and owned pictures


see more pwn and owned pictures

Congenital cataract

I was going through some pictures I took over the summer and stumbled across one that really shows Nate's cataract and how it bounces the light back at the camera. You might remember back when Nate was 4 months old it was a photo like this one that sent us, and Nate's pediatrician into a frenzy thinking he may have a condition called Retinoblastoma, a cancer of the retina that often manifests itself by bouncing a white glow back at the camera when flash is used.

We thank God every day for that cataract, because although Nate has a big decrease in vision in that eye because of it, he can live with it and to us, little else matters.

Time for a real post

Figured it was a good time to update on the goings on around here. Tonight is my last night of work before we go to Faith's Lodge next week on vacation! We are all very excited to be getting away for a few days with no work, no distractions, without half the towns teenagers in my presence at all times...... *sigh* bliss.

It's that time of year again. Poor Nate started vomiting on Tuesday. You might recall him being hospitalized in June for dehydration... when he gets sick he gets SICK. Well this bout was no difference and ended up with Craig bringing him in yesterday. One of the great things about working at the hospital is being able to be right there when someone in my family has to come in. Of course Nate was dehydrated again and urgent care quickly brought him over to ED where they decided to give him some IV fluids there, hoping not to have to admit him. Poor Mike the paramedic tried and tried to get that line in and couldn't. Through no fault of his own, Nate's a really hard stick anyway and put dehydration on top of teenie veins and you've got your work cut out for you. Finally we all decided we'd had enough and the doc agreed to see if he could keep pedialyte down orally.

Thankfully with that pedialyte into him and no puking happening he perked right up and started acting like the devious kid we have now nicknamed "beast". Even felt well enough to throw my brand new cell phone in the toilet, grrrrrrrrrr. I think it will be ok, today it works but there's some funny lines through the screen which I'm asuming are just some water trapped so I'm giving it another day or two of rest and hoping all is well.

AT the end of it, 4 hours later we left and he's been acting like his normal "beastie" self since! He, of course, was the star of the show in the ED and had all the nurses swooning. hehe. Now here's hoping the rest of us don't come down with it while on vacation!

I've scheduled some goofy posts through the week we are gone to keep you entertained hehe.

Because somedays it really does look like a clown car

Thos are alphabet refridgerator magnets.....