Family! The Best Medicine

So it’s a widely known truth that family can be the best part of who you are and also the driving force to your journey into insanity. That being said, I am so thankful to have the family that I have. Of course there is “my” family. My parents and my sister, her kids and her husband and his family and then there is my husband’s family, which is also now my family. There is also family that is not family genetically but is family because we love them so much there is no other place for them in the categories of our lives other than, family.

Today Ben, Tristan, and I headed over to Ben’s aunt Kristy’s house for his Cousin Jonah’s 15^th birthday party. We walked in and in a split second, our little family of three grows by 20. It’s awesome. With all the stuff we've been dealing with this summer, the love and embracing of our “families” has been the best medicine.

My relationship with Ben’s family has not always been wonderful. There were always lots of different personalities and immature ways of dealing with relational situations. But we've all grown up and have our own babies and now our time together is pretty much exclusively fun and cathartic.

I just felt compelled to share what I was feeling. I feel really blessed that not only I have this wonderful group of people in my life but that my son has them as well. He has an amazing relationship with my sisters kids and he absolutely loves hanging out with his 2^nd cousins (or something like that) on Ben’s side. It’s wonderful to grow up with family. 

Project House: Living Room Plans

As you know, one of things I love and hate so much about this house are the entire list of projects that it needs to feel more like us. Things we have decided not to change are the stained concrete floors.

 That’s mostly it. We will do a deep cleaning and re-sealing on them when the weather is a bit better. But that’s it until we buy the house.

So, first project! The Living Room. 

We already have two of the pieces we need to work on. The two side tables.

In addition we need to paint. Ben and I have not officially decided on a color but we are leaning towards a light grey blue for the three regular walls.  

On the dark brown panel wall we want to do a pop of color, some accent color- which we are not 100% on yet.

 What we are sure about that wall is closing up the weird shelving thing. This will give us more room in the entry hall closet and allow us to build floor to ceiling book shelves along most of this wall. 

These are some of my inspiration builds. 

Pregnant with Power Tools

Thrifty Decor Chick

Just a Girl DIY Built In Book Case

 However, with the new financial set up in this house, I will have to be incredibly budget minded. Meaning, the most expensive thing in this room will be my new couches. These are not them.

On the TV wall, we will be redoing the photos in white frames and new pics. 

My 8 year old son is demanding more updated pictures of him. LOL ok!

I agree. In addition we were planning on building this massive media center to house our antique water jug lamps. They are huge. However, this plan is going to cost too much so I had to do a re-think. So here is what we are going to do!!!!

We will take the table that is currently acting as our media center and refinish it. It will go behind the love seat and will be the new home of the giant glass water jug lamps.

 For the media center we will find…. Somehow and some where a dresser that is big enough to take up some massive wall space but is cheap enough that I can take and do what I want to it. I did see a cute dresser at a shop here in town but funds are not in our favor right this second, so this is going to be a slow moving process.

As you can see this room is wrapped in windows.

Three floor to ceiling on one wall and a weird long short window on the other.  This is the hottest room in the house and those blinds; they do little to stop the sun and even less to stop prying eyes as at night when the lamps are on you can see straight into our living room from the street. I have a good feeling that diy grommet drapes will be a first project in this room for those two reasons.

We need to make two more lamps for the side tables….

Or take the ones that are there that I won on e-bay 12 years ago and re-wire them and paint them. That seems to make more sense.

I also plan on making a couple floor pillows, adding a cool re-finished or upholstered side chair, figuring out a rug and adding throw pillows.

All in all there is a lot to do but I am anxious to get started. I am hoping to at least get the windows dealt with before the end of August!

Wish me luck! Thanks for following

Understanding Loss

I have sat down to write this post about a dozen times since three weeks ago when we found out we were going to miscarry. It’s been harder for me to write about than I thought it would as I have had countless miscarriages in the past. I couldn't figure out why this was so hard to talk about or to be honest about how I was feeling. Today, after church and visiting with some friends- I felt a revealing spirit come over me and I was ready to put it to paper or to the wide world of internet as would be.

To go back to fully understand the history of our journey with pregnancies we need to go all the way back to 2002. Ben and I were married in October and began trying for a family almost immediately. Three years later when there had been nothing happening we went to see a fertility specialist. We discovered then that I had poly cystic Ovaries. Meaning I had cysts on my ovaries that could be preventing ovulation. 

 After some oral medication to help move the process along, and still nothing- our Doctor told us this very phrase; “I am afraid that without extraordinary measures, you will not be able to conceive and carry a child.”

That was devastating to hear as we didn't have “extraordinary” funds to pay for such measures. And to be quite honest, we had watched some very close family members go through all of those measures and the struggle it put them through.

After a couple months Ben and I decided, well if we aren't going to have children- we will continue to work in children’s ministries and get a dog. A week after Christmas in 2004- one week after picking up Kenya, our now 10 year old pit mix, we found out that we were 6 weeks pregnant.

Now, our Doctor tried to claim some ownership of this miracle, but we told him. “You said that a pregnancy would not be possible without extraordinary measures- We serve the King of Extraordinary and you don’t get any credit!”

My pregnancy with Tristan was without issue. Aside from my stubborn gallbladder and pulling a uterine muscle… it was an event-less pregnancy and he was born healthy and happy and we were beyond blessed.

When Tristan was 2 we started trying for a second baby. This is where our journey became more of a roller coaster. For 1 almost 2 years I had somewhere between 7-9 early miscarriages. This happened so often that I stopped telling anyone about it, sometimes not even my husband. It destroyed us every time even though we never knew we were pregnant until I began to miscarry.

So, that brings us to now…. 5 years later, I take a pregnancy test in late June because I was late… and to our complete and total surprise a second, very faint line appeared.  You have to understand we haven’t had a positive pregnancy test since Tristan. We were shocked and in

complete and total disbelief. I sent pictures of my 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, 12^th test to friends and family to get some help on the test results.

Soon thereafter I scheduled a Dr Appointment. My test there was also light so they were just kind of watching to see what would happen. A week later I started cramping. My doctor took me out of work and put me on modified bed rest. We kept watching and waiting. I know they were waiting for me to miscarry but I never did. My HCG numbers kept rising, not doubling but rising. Around what they thought was 9 weeks they did an internal ultra sound and found the gestational sack only measured 5 weeks. So again, watch and wait we did for three more weeks.

This is where things got really difficult. I took my son and my mom with me to see the growing baby for our 2^nd internal ultrasound. However, when the image came up on the screen and I saw the gestational sac, nothing in it and the same size it was three weeks earlier, I knew in my heart something was wrong.

I sent my son with my mom to the lobby. I wanted to be the one to explain this to him, not a doctor.

So, the diagnosis was a blighted-ovum. There never was a baby.  I’m not going to get into the details of this medical term, but the bottom line is…. It’s considered a chemical pregnancy. I suffered morning sickness, a swelling uterus, food craving and aversions as well as supersonic sniffer.

That day, when I arrived home I began to miscarry.

I find that I have been battling myself in mourning the loss of, perhaps not a baby because a baby wasn't there but the hope and the desire … that was real and that truly is what I was mourning.

I haven’t screamed out WHY? It hasn't been that kind of sadness.  I trust my God implicitly and know He has a plan for our lives and our family. I am not going to begin to try to decipher the message in this…. Because I know for sure, I probably wouldn't understand it if I had it.

I will confess, however, that for Ben and I both, what this pregnancy did was open up our hearts to having another baby or bringing into our home another child. We had been pretty closed to the idea. I mean, we aren't getting any younger- we are both in the worst shape of our lives… and our son is turning 9 in less than a month.

So, in all where we are now is simply- faithful. There are three verses that have stood out to me during this time.

Psalms 138:8

 The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.

Romans 8:28

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Romans 12:2

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

The title of this blog is “Understanding Loss”. The most I can offer to this is that it’s not about understanding the why to the losses in our lives. It is truly instead saying…. “OK God. I trust you, I believe your purpose for my life is perfect and I love you.” If we all who lose people or dreams in our lives could or were at all able to go to our knees and declare this truth…. I am not saying it will make the hurt in our hearts go away but I have experienced the healing and peaceful settling that comes with giving it to God. After all, it belongs to Him in the first place.

Thank you all for staying connected and I look forward to new and exciting postings as we amp up for Bowl Full of Blessings 2015