Ski trip

Some of our homeschool friends planned a ski field trip to a local ski resort and invited the T family to go with them. We had just been talking of going and letting the kids learn, so we jumped at the chance. Conner of course wanted to snowboard and Elizabeth really didn't want to ski or anything. I talked Elizabeth into skiing and giving it a chance and tried to talk Conner out of snowboarding since we knew it would be tough.

So this past Monday was the big day, we packed all our gear and rode up the mountain with our friends the S family. We got there and got the gear from the pro shop. I was impressed at the nice quality of the gear and the overall price of $20 a kid for ski's, lesson''s and lift tickets. I got Elizabeth settled and the pro shop guy helped Conner get strapped into his boots and we waited for snow school. I stood between the lessons to help the kids since Marty couldn't go with us and I needed to keep a eye on both kids. Elizabeth got the hang of things very quickly and was walking in those ski's in no time at all and then she was zipping down the bunnyhill like a wiz. Conner of course struggled,got frustrated and wanted to quit almost immediately, it doesn't help that he is left handed and rides "goofy" as they call it. I encouraged him not to quit and stick with it, he fell so much he missed the entire end of the lesson.

He wanted to stay in the " magic carpet" area and Elizabeth wanted to go over to the big bunny hill. So I spent the entire day walking around a ski lift between hills. I am so glad I decided to not learn how to ski because it would have been difficult at best. I enjoyed watching the kids learn and have so much fun. My friend S asked me if I thought Elizabeth could manage a basic run and I asked her the criteria. She said " She needs to know how to turn and how to stop" and I had seen her doing both on the large bunny hill. So S took Elizabeth up the chair lift and over the mountain telling me the would be back in 45 minutes since it was Elizabeth's first run. All of the sudden 20 minutes later here they come on the horizon and S it telling me that Elizabeth did "AWESOME" and that she wished I could have seen her. Apparrently she speed down the mountain and whizzed past other skiers. She only fell at the very end of the run to stop herself because she was going in her words" Way tooo fast". Conner finally got it by the end of the day and wants to go back again really soon to practice his skills.

What a fun time we all had skiing and what a nice break from all the craziness of the past 15 days!



Conner skiing from Just Jules on Vimeo.



Elizabeth the natural born skier from Just Jules on Vimeo.

"Oh, the humanity..I have no hotmail"

I am currently without email since Tuesday, apperantly some bug cause a worldwide Hotmail outage. Of course, Murphy's law is that I have been affected..surprise, surprise. I am really frustrated since all of my contacts are in there and I can't possibly have everyone's email address memorized. UGHHHHHH

I lost sixty dollars on Monday while taking the kids skiing, of course I didn't find it because that would be good and nothing good is happening to me right now. Can you tell I am a little peeved? I am trying to be happy with each day and not worry about tomorrow because I know tomorrow will have enough trouble of it's own. I just hope whoever found the sixty dollars really needed it and it was a blessing to them.

On to the really bad news, Marty will have to go on dialysis at some point! We are very upset, we got a call from Stanford on Tuesday afternoon saying that he needs a cardiac cather test and they cannot do it because the dyes will send him into complete renal failure. So they have to wait until he needs dialysis to do the test and this is a huge devastation in our eyes since we were hoping for no dialysis. We are now hoping he can make it to the top of the list before needing dialysis so maybe it can be just a temporary thing. Maybe they can get him to the top of the list and do the test, then put him on dialysis if need be. Marty is really devasted by this news and I just don't understand what is going on right now. I guess life is hard and things aren't always going to be easy. I think I have found a new appreciation for trouble free days and new days in general.

I will post about the kids ski trip soon, it really was wonderful

Hell week

I am so glad tomorrow is Sunday it will be a new week, the past 12 days have been some I would really like to forget. This ranks up there with 2006 status in my book. Let's see where did I leave off, well as you know our good friend passed away and so we went to see her family on Sunday between services at church. It was a good time to see them since there were not many people there and we had sometime to talk. It was horrible walking into her home and her not being there and seeing her family in devastation. We left to go back to church and Marty was acting kind of funky, but I chalked it up to him holding in emotion. We got back to church and I saw Tami's best friend and wanted to talk to her. We talked about things and hugged for a long time and then she went into church.

 Then two friends come running out to tell me that my husband has passed out on stage, I knew immediately he was having a insulin reaction and needed sugar ASAP. This happened in front of a full crowd of about 200 people so that was hard for him. It has been happening alot because when your kidney's fail the insulin does not get flushed out of your body and so you might think you need so much but really you still have this much in you. So it is a tough thing to figure out and the Dr at Stanford told us he thinks Marty should stay high rather than go low. Anways, I forgot to tell you it was Marty's birthday that day and I felt so bad for him. What a birthday!

Wednesday was the viewing and it started at three so my neighbor and I went together. The family had there time at two and when we walked in they were still all there and not quite ready for the public. I felt awful and like I was walking into something private and was very uncomfortable all together. It was a time to say goodbye and I am glad I went for that closure and I think the whole situation was just awkward for everyone.

Thursday was the memorial there were about 400 people there to say goodbye. It was a beautiful service and many people from our past were there. Our old pastor flew in from Ohio to be here for the service and our old congregation was together with our new church family. It was truly a amazing time and I know Tam would have been happy with people coming together.

We got home from that to deal with accident stuff, basically the guy is lying and we know it. He is really trying to push for heavens knows what! I am really scared but I know it will all work out eventually...........it's just stuff and it's just money. So little in comparison to what has been going on but still disturbing.

On to the best news of the week, I was saving it for last. Marty will be getting a kidney and a pancreas transplant!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are thrilled beyond words and it is the best news we could have gotten!

Some things I have learned about me this week:

I can be left speechless and at a loss for words

I can only take so much and then I lose it completely

Life is short and we are not guaranteed tomorrow

Live life to the fullest and how you treat others does matter

I care what people think about me but I am trying to change this habit to not care!

The unthinkable can happen

Tell your friends you love them and call them when you need to tell them something. Don't put it off and don't wait because you might not see them again.

FYI

We did get the news at Stanford that Marty will be getting a dual transplant. We are overjoyed at this and my peace about the situation grows by the day.

"I forgot it was even Valentines day"

I woke up this morning anxious and worried about the accident and what will happen since I have never been through this before. I have worried all day about a couple hunks of metal and who will be at fault, insurance and all that. Nothing anyone said could make me feel better and I have worked myself into a tizzy. I felt better this afternoon after talking with a acquaintance about things and she shed some light on my situation through her own accident a year ago.

I had called my friend R falling apart this morning and asked her to pray for me. My conditioned response is everything will go wrong and nothing will be found in my favor because it has never happened that way. She called this afternoon and I thought she was calling to check on me and she told me she had news that our longtime friend had been in a wreck. She was headed to the hospital with her friend who is best friends with the person. I went outside with Conner to see the shuttle and came in to Marty telling me to sit down. I started yelling " No, No,NO not that" and he said "Yes, R just called and she didn't make it through surgery"

A friend for 10 yrs who I just sat behind in bible study on Sunday, A wife, A mom of 4 and a grandma. Her youngest is only 6 months younger than Conner. Our kids have grown up together and we had playdates, she went to Haiti on a mission with Marty and played on the worship team with him. We are devastated at the loss and I just don't understand why the world I know is crumbling around me. I have stayed strong until today and I think I have finally broke...l don't see the purpose in this yet and how I will grow from it in the long run.

Tibits

So many things to share, I will try to make it short and sweet( ha,ha you know that is hard for me)

Marty is doing well in his new position as Sgt. and seems to be very happy with this promotion. He gained two percent kidney function this week meaning he is stable for the time being. He goes to see the surgeon at Stanford next week and he will decide whether he is a good candidate for Pancreas transplant. Hopefully all goes well and they decide to put him on the list and we can start planning for that.

I made a deal with Elizabeth that she would keep her room clean and I would take her to see the Hannah Montana concert on the big screen. Now cleaning her room consists of very simple things, toys in the toy box, clothes in the hamper and the floor clean. She doesn't even have to make her bed as a part of the deal but she needs to keep her toys off the stairs, out of the living room, out of my room, the car, her brother's room, the bathroom and the school area. She has a really hard time doing this and usually the toys are all over those area's. She promised Marty and I she would do this without being asked a bazillion times and she failed. I had to tell two friend's we were unable to go with them to see the movie and I think it was harder for me. She did get upset this morning when her friend called her to tell her to clean her room and we had to tell her and the friend "no". We give our kids alot and we just took her to the movies to see "Alvin and the Chipmunks" and they are going skiing the end of the month. Other people make their kids earn things by grades and test scores and we do that by making them follow our rules. I just don't believe our kids need all this stuff and I agree they are just kids and should get treats but they need to follow the rules. Hard one!

Conner is getting ready to go to camp fairly soon, I am nervous he will be away from us for three days and it is his first time going. He is really excited he earned the chance to go because last year we had to tell him "no" because he failed to meet his goal. This year he did what was expected of him and I am so proud he gets to go but so scared to send him away for a few days. He is such a big help to me and he really deserves to get a special treat such as this!!!

I have been trying to stay on routine and keep the schedule in order which is a daunting task at times. I have been watching the Jane Austen miniseries every week which brings great joy to me. Nothing much exciting to report on my end except I am really looking forward to seeing my family next month and taking a trip to So.Cal.

VOTE

If you live in a voting state please get out and exercise your right to vote! You can help change our country one vote at a time and use a powerful tool many in this world cannot use. If you don't vote then you can't complain when things don't go the way you want them to go. Also, get informed on this issue's for yourself and don't let someone make up your mind for you!

Is 3 in one day considered excessive?

Okay, this whole ER thing with Andrea reminded me of a incident from the past summer. I went back through my archives to see I had not posted the story of my ER experience. We have one hospital in Visalia, the other hospital was bought by this one and closed down ( can we say monopoly?). It has since been turned into a Urgent Care that closes at 5 PM, we have a Urgent Care company in town that also closes at 5 PM.


So it is a Friday evening I am playing with Elizabeth in the living room helping her untangle a slinky type bracelet like this one
[IMG]http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e5/downtownjules/slinky_small.jpg[/IMG]


All of the sudden it snaps,I feel something in my eye and run to the bathroom to see that I have a small piece lodged in under my lower eyelid. I call Marty and he can't see anything, but I can tell something is there and I need to get it out a.s.a.p. So I call my friend Robin to watch my kids while we go to the doctor to see if they can remove it. We drop our kids off and run by the Urgent Care to see it has closed for the evening. We drive to the Hospital, brave the horrible parking situation, walk in the ER to see 5 million people in there with nowhere to sit. We walk up to the front desk clerk to check in, she asks why we are there and proceeds to say " I can't see anything and it is a two hour wait" rolling her eyes and handing over a clipboard. We look at each other and decide to go check the other Urgent care in town. We are driving around and I am looking in the visor mirror to see if I can see the piece of metal, sure enough there it is shining back at me! We arrive at the other Urgent Care to see that it is also closed. I decide I am either going to the fire station or go to my friend Michelle's to see if she can remove it for me. We decide to go home and see if we can figure something out or prepare for a long night in the ER waiting room with the rest of Visalia. I called Michelle and she asked me if I tried using a piece of kleenex to grab it, I had not and really it was my best option. I grabbed a piece of kleenex and removed it out of my eye after 5 minutes of trying unsuccessfully to remove it. We got our kids and I saved the metal to show the eye doctor the next day since I didn't know what else to do. I got checked out the next day by the optometrist and all was fine.


We live in a heavy agricultural area with many farm laborers who have no health care and depend on the ER to treat them. It is sad that our ER's have become Dr.'s offices and when true emergency's arise there is no immediate care available. The town 15 minutes up the freeway has closed it's ER because they couldn't afford to keep it open. This means that we are going to get impacted as will Fresno. We all know in this area if you want good care you have to drive to LA or SF to get high quality treatment. We are lucky to have a good Children's hospital in Fresno but it is the only one between LA and Sacramento so it is quite impacted itself. Sadly, it isn't just here in this city it is nationwide and no matter where you stand politically, socially or economically it is affecting you and we need to make a change.

The Other Post Is Gone

A/N I deleted the previous post. It was about a situation that happened when I went to someone's house. It wasn't very nice and I deleted this. This is still good advice.

On the note of the last post, I was thinking of this proverb and thought I would share it. I will highlight the parts I try to live by when dealing with others. I don't think I am supposed to be a doormat for others to walk on though and I have been trying to grow stronger in this for several years.

Proverbs 25

More Proverbs of Solomon

1 These are more proverbs of Solomon, copied by the men of Hezekiah king of Judah:
2 It is the glory of God to conceal a matter;
to search out a matter is the glory of kings.

3 As the heavens are high and the earth is deep,
so the hearts of kings are unsearchable.

4 Remove the dross from the silver,
and out comes material for [a] the silversmith;

5 remove the wicked from the king's presence,
and his throne will be established through righteousness.

6 Do not exalt yourself in the king's presence,
and do not claim a place among great men;

7 it is better for him to say to you, "Come up here,"
than for him to humiliate you before a nobleman.
What you have seen with your eyes

8 do not bring [b] hastily to court,
for what will you do in the end
if your neighbor puts you to shame?

9 If you argue your case with a neighbor,
do not betray another man's confidence,

10 or he who hears it may shame you
and you will never lose your bad reputation.

11 A word aptly spoken
is like apples of gold in settings of silver.

12 Like an earring of gold or an ornament of fine gold
is a wise man's rebuke to a listening ear.

13 Like the coolness of snow at harvest time
is a trustworthy messenger to those who send him;
he refreshes the spirit of his masters.

14 Like clouds and wind without rain
is a man who boasts of gifts he does not give.

15 Through patience a ruler can be persuaded,
and a gentle tongue can break a bone.

16 If you find honey, eat just enough—
too much of it, and you will vomit.

17 Seldom set foot in your neighbor's house—
too much of you, and he will hate you.

18 Like a club or a sword or a sharp arrow
is the man who gives false testimony against his neighbor.

19 Like a bad tooth or a lame foot
is reliance on the unfaithful in times of trouble.

20 Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day,
or like vinegar poured on soda,
is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.

21 If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat;
if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.

22 In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head,
and the LORD will reward you.

23 As a north wind brings rain,
so a sly tongue brings angry looks.

24 Better to live on a corner of the roof
than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.

25 Like cold water to a weary soul
is good news from a distant land.

26 Like a muddied spring or a polluted well
is a righteous man who gives way to the wicked.

27 It is not good to eat too much honey,
nor is it honorable to seek one's own honor.

28 Like a city whose walls are broken down
is a man who lacks self-control.