SLACKER!!!

there's probably lotts i could write about...

how my thrush seems to be getting better, yet i'm still in a whole lott of pain on the right side and nursing can be quite torturous

how Lizzy is WAY TOO SMART for me and growing and learning at such incredible speed i really cannot keep up with her

how LoLo doesn't sleep anymore (at least not through the night)

but she loves every bite of rice cereal i can't seem to give her quite fast enough

how it is back to being soooo hot outside that we rarely leave the house

and, because of that we just bought and installed the 3rd window fan

how it seems like we've done an incredible amount of work, and yet have not made much progress-the house is arranged neater, but in such a mess and dissaray i'm discouraged the minute i get downstairs by how much we have left to do

or how i am so tired and irritable most of the day, i am surprized my hubby hasn't killed me yet...

but, well... i guess all the above are the reasons why i don't write much.. i barely sit down...

but honestly, i am not complaining... except for maybe the LoLo girl's refusal to sleep... but then again, i could try to get to bed a little earlier than 3 or 4 in the morning!! (what is wrong with me?)

long long long way to go...

ok... i know i said i'd try to be positive, but what do you do when so much keeps going wrong?

like getting our cell phone shut off cuz we don't have the money to pay the bill...

or feeling like this thrush is not getting better... at least not fast enough, and being so worried that i'm gonna have to do something drastic... i'll find out tommarow if i have medical coverage here, or if not if i can get it here, or agian if not, if there is a free clinic somewhere that will give a perscription that i might need..

it hurts sooooo bad.....

and then, after what? a week now? of ed trying to hook up the wireless, and after every gadget under the sun, and going and getting a whole new thinger ma bob (i'm not very fluent in computerneez), and yayyyy!! it works!!!! finally!!!! but for some stupid reason the house phones don't....(they're all connected-the phone internet and cable)

or waiting and waiting for my dad to get a response from social service about his application for disability, and then he get's something in the mail, and like good girls (me and my mom) we waited for grandpa to open it himself... eddie almost steamed the edges open, to find out what the answer was before my dad got home, but he was good too...

and then...
well...
he gets home...
and he opens....

and it says, once again, that he has to go to yet another docter, and get re-evaluated, for the fourth time now, before they can approve or dissapprove... so that they can "make the best possible decision"....

ERRRRRRRR!!!!

how many doctors will it take?

supposedly there is this order to it, where you have to apply, get denied, apply again, get denied, apply yet again, and then, after the third time of denial, go and get yourself a lawyer and they will go and get your disability for you, with a nice chunk of payment of course, but chump change when it does in fact take a whike, and they have to back pay for evey month since the first day you applied....

well... my dad hasn't even gotten his first denial yet... and i'm really hoping they will go ahead and approve him, since they've been dragging him allong since december!!!....

man, i was so bummed... i thought for sure my mom was gonna get to put in her notice to retire the next day and everything... she's waiting for either the disability check to come, or the house to sell before giving her notice...

unfortunately, that looks like 'not any time soon'...

well... that all being said...
i guess there is good news... we did get our internet working, so i no longer have to worry about waking Lizzy or arm wrestling my dad (or the hubby) for a turn... or feeling anti social and rude whenever i'm at my mother in laws... cuz that was the only time i could upload pictures, if i wanted to...

now i can do it all from the comfort of my (parents') own home

so you know what that means????

PICTURES!!!!

here's some cute ones of me and the LoLo girl that i never fit into another post





and, there's some more on my babies' blog The Adventures of Lizzy and LoLo

did i say i'd try to write about positive things?

well, then in that case i guess it's time... to announce...

Adora goes poopoo on the potty!!!!

this is pretty big news, considering she's not even 2...

we'd started training her awhile ago, but i'd pretty much given up, figuring a, she just isn't ready, and b, we left her potty in storage...

but she keeps insisting...

and for a few days, it was every 20 minutes or so, whether she had to go or not, and often would have already gone by the time i got her to the bathroom, and a couple times was half way through, and finished while on the potty...

but 3 times now have been from start to finish... she'll come in a room, finding either me or a grandma, saying "poo poo pooooo pooooo" building in excitement with every syllable, whoever she found will take her in to the potty, help her undress, lift her up on it, and sit with her, while she actually, and happily, does her business...
and then when she's "all done" she will wave her arms around in sign language to say all done, and as soon as whoever acknowledges that she'll point to the t.p. and when you hand her a peice she will then wad it all up and 'wipe' her back mostly but the attempt is there...

i can hardly believe it...

and in no way any lesser of news...

Chloe' rolls over

and over and over and over and over and over...

back to belly, belly to back, to belly to back, to belly to back...either side to side and back and forth, or in a continuous direction, but obsessively either way, and from the second i lay her down...

she actually rolled over from back to belly first, around 3 1/2 months old, and her obsession trully formed at around 4 1/2 months when she could finally do from belly to back.. and on and on she goes...

i will try to get pictures...

THHRRUUSSHH!!!!!!!

if i could just fall over dead right now....

i am so sad and mad and feeling bad and wish oh wish there were never ever such a thing as thrush...

all along, since day one, Chloe has been my "pain free nurser"

only deemed so because Adora's early nursing days were so painful...

but then again, i did get mastitis with her.. that was pretty painful....
but thrush!?!?!! thrush is the worst!!! mostly because the pain is directly associated with nursing... i mean, with mastitis you just hurt, but the actual act of nursing doesn't add to the pain at all, in fact it can be a relief...

but with thrush, nursing becomes the most herrendously painful thing on earth... i mean i might as well sign myself up for torture sessions... and it is so sad because i LOVE to nurse my babies... and i have been so stoked with Chloe and how well it has gone... up untill now....

what to do????

with adora, nothing worked.. i tried GSE and my nipples got so dried out and almost bled,
gentian violet worked in her mouth but did nothing for the shooting pains through my back
i drank acidophilus every day... i mostly quit sugar....(which i think may be the main culprit here)but it wasn't untill i took diflucan orally for 2 weeks that it went away....

so... about the sugar...

i'm afraid it is my own fault...

i have totally let go on dieting...

i was getting so depressed (not to make excuses) and was so hungry all the time, and really wanting, if not needing, comfort foods... and well... one thing led to another, and before i knew it i'm eating chocolate and ice cream everyday...

LAME LAME STUPID STUPID me...

Devon... i am hopeless without you!!!

anywya... the real kicker, i guess, is the lack of medical aid here... so... it's off to the drugstore, in hopes that something over the counter will do the trick...

i will start with the GSE and the immunity boosters and the probiotics, in hopes that they will prove effective this time...

but unfortunately Chloe already has a really bad rash thtat won't go away so i'm gonna need a cream for her, and there are some that i can use directly on my nipples even....

sooo.....

there you have it... the breastfeeding devil strikes again...

the very last thing i want to do is wean...

but if i have to, the bright side would be the solving of 2 other problems...
1. i can get a job and not worry about pumping
and
2. i can start a more drastic form of weight loss without fear of harming the baby...

but these are worst case, end of the list, last option scenerios...

i'm just trying to look on the bright side...

Ed thinks i should just quit nursing... in his defense he says it's cuz he just doesn't want to see me go throught that much pain again... but he is committed to supporting me in whateer descision i make...

another really random long drawn out but hopefully funny story... or three totally unrelated stories with a serious note at the end...

now, i don't mind the heat so much, unless it gets really humid, and i wouldn't even mind the humidity all that much, untill it gets really hot... and that's what it is here... really humid, and really hot

the day before yesterday was one of those days where it is so humid and so hot, i wanted to peel off my skin and sit around bone naked... ok that's gross... but i swear, even fully naked felt overdressed...

so anyway, here we were, in a 3-level house with only 2 small window ac fans (that don't work half as good as the ones in the sac-town duplex's), and i'm downstairs, in the basement, which is usually the coolest room, and i'm sweating profusely, (and i hadn't even moved to change the channel in about 10 minutes -it was that hot)and i start to smell this weird chemical that was begining to make my lungs hurt...(i'm really sensitive to chemicals, even without being in a room where the air is barely moving let alone nowhere near fresh)... I start freaking out and ask ed to figure out what it is...

my dad had decided to spray this silicone? stuff in the frame of the sliding glass door and the button on the microwave door "because they were sticking" ?!!?!!***don't worry dad, i have forgiven you, it's just all part of the story***

i had asked ed to find out if it was safe, but he brings me the bottle and i read, sure enough, "use in well ventilated area... do not breathe in vapors" (and they call me crazy and over-dramatic... i mean, there are kids in the house!! and he (my dad) has asthama -no wonder- but shame on me for being concerned!)


anyway, so after them opening the doors to "air it out", making it even more 'hotter than i thought possible', i opted to take the kids out for ice cream...

anyone care to join us?

my dad had plans and my mom was on the way home... i called her to see if she wanted to meet us but she was already almost home, and we needed the car seat out of her car so we waited... and she almost didn't want to go, till she did get there, was overwhelmed by the smell and the heat and the idea of eating dinner at the supermarket suddenly sounded like a great one...

so... we never did get ice cream, but we did have a wonderful seseme chicken salad, and buy about a million groceries (out of sheer boredom mixed with an intense love for air conditioning- that's my reasoning)... and i guess you could say we had fun... Lizzy can be quite entertaining at the store... she loves to "help" push the cart... if i were walking toward you you might not see the little munchkin inbetween my legs and just think i was either severely bow-legged or semi handicapped with the way i'm walking to avoid tripping over her....

anyway... on with the story(s)... on our way home (we went reluctantly) we made a few stops which brought us into official nighttime with a lovely strobe light darkness... that's right, you guessed it- LIGHTNING!!!! (ok maybe you didn't guess.. but that was what brought the strobe light effect...) as we watched the miraculous light display in the sky we carried on a heated discussion on what the difference is between regular lightning and heat lightning... does anyone know?

well here's what we came up with:
1. heat lightning will not have the loud booming thunder accompanying the regular (for lack of a better term) lightning...
2. while bolts may appear, they never touch the earth, nor are they as prominent as in regular lightning...
3.heat lightning is mainly continuous flashes of light all over the sky, usually behind clouds, creating more of a cloud formation display than a thunderous bolts display, and are a lot more repititious...

well, regardless, it still looked really cool, even though i prefer the bolts, and i really wish i could've gotten a picture somehow (though even if i did, i couldn't have uploaded without the usb cable-stupid me) but my batteries needed charging... and while we were waiting for those, i was showing my mom the all too adorable video "Eowyn's moves" and our power goes out!!!

and then comes right back on again before we find the flashlights

and then goes off agian before we think how smart it would've been to keep looking anyway...

and off it stayed...

pitch blackness inside and strobe light sky outside, till we found flashlights and candles... and then untill 4:33 am.... i know beacause i couldn't sleep and decided to watch a movie on our labtop (which was fully charged -gotta love technology-) after everyone else went to bed like sore sports... well i guess i shouldn't pick on my mom, cuz she had to get up in the morning... and my husband should sleep so he can wake up early and go get a job... and my dad.. well he's the lucky one who contentedly did what he does every night... read... except by candlelight-no big difference really-... i teased him for his convenient non dependance on modern conveniences, like electricity... without which i couldn't watch tv, or cook, or sew or surf the net, or blog, or even take a shower, because of the electric water pump, which i might not have otherwise known about...

but i was sooo happy when i remembered my labtop... which has been somewhat neglected these days due to lack of wireless service...(a long story i won't bore you with)

the other highlights of the night were opening all the doors and windows to let in the intense breeze from outside, which felt so wonderful untill ed's joke, and we realized that he wasn't joking the wind did in fact knock a tree down in our front yard!(*another picture i wish i could've taken to show you) and then it became scarry as we heard limbs and branches being ripped off trees all over the neighborhood...

*but don't worry, it was a small one, and is now upright again, being held so by a crutch, you know the one's people use when their leg is broken), which i'm thinking might make a more interesting photo... except it will probably look as if the crutch is leaning against the tree, rather than the other way around...

anyhoo... besides all the mosquitoes that got a wild feast that night (us), the good news was that the next day it was wayyyyy cooler, and not at all humid (apparently that's what happens in the midwest, the humidity builds, till it rains, then it's really nice, till the moisture and heat build again bringin another storm, and so on...)

it was sooo nice outside that we decided to go to the park...

where we ran in to...(if at this point you're wondering 'does this post ever end?', i promise you, we're almost there)Cliff of all people!! which i guess isn't too weird, i mean he does live here, and eddie was playing the djembe, which very few people in this town do, if any, and naturally cliff had to wonder who the heck was in the park and came to find us!!!... and our 2 kids!!! i would've guessed him to be as shocked as us, having not seen either of us since we were married, maybe longer, but apparently he had been praying to find us, well ed mostly, since he'd heard we were in town...

which brings me to my final point... ever since jack (cliff's younger brother)died,*to read about that, click here * things have been really hard... especially for josh, jack's twin brother... I guess he's tried to kill himself recently, and his girlfriend just o.d.'ed last night... she lived, but i'm really worried... Josh was always the one we swore would be fine out of all of them, and possibly showed the most interest in God and the bible... maybe cliff a little more so, it's hard to say... cliff is still what could be considered a backslider, though he may be closer now than ever... to God that is... but only God knows...

anyway... please, if any of you think to, pray for these guys-

for true repentance to be granted to both of them, salvation.. all that stuff... that they would really come to know the love and grace of our Maker...

it's funny how zealous i can feel with things like this... i mean i probably need a lot of God myself, i guess we all do... but i've been going through a lot, and questioning everything, and even doubting some things, and really wondering what is up and stuff... but then, something or some one like this comes along and it all seems to make so much sense... my life, my purpose, God, the state of the world...

anyway... love you

peace and joy and grace in Him

maybe...

i was just a little (or more than a little) bummed that no one ever commented on those super cute curls on the little LoLo girl...(4 posts down...)

to those who do in fact miss me...

i really am sorry...

i guess the truth is i fall in to feeling sorry for myself way too easily

below (the post below, untitled) is a little snippet of how i was feeling yesterday...

for the record i will say now (hopefully before you read it) that it isn't always this bad... i do get a little attention sometimes...

but that is not all of what keeps me...

also the lack of wireless, and me missing my usb chord is a little discouraging...

plus the only computer is in the room where adora sleeps, and since nap time and after bed is the only time i ever get to blog usually, i rarely get to any more, unless i'm out, or daring enough to risk waking the little fire ball...

but, in honor of nanny joe, i must say i do have a lot to be thankful for... way to much to keep up too long with this self pity "*@#!" as she would call it...

plus she might never forgive me if i did just up and quit blogging...

so... i promise... i will try to find positive things to write about, and the time to write them, and keep you all posted, as i do love you all, more than you know, and just to hear the responses so far has snapped me back in to reality, and brought tears to my eye, and i feel so loved and stupid all at the same time...

and that part about no comments... please forgive me for that too... i am so caught up in my own little world sometimes, and can sit on my pity pot and pout pout pout till i hate myself and say no wonder nobody likes me, and then when i see that people do like me, and did all along, i am embarressed and want to hide all the more...

but i also decided that it shouldn't matter anyway, i am what i am and that's all that i am...

take it or leave it...

thanks for reading...

i feel myself slipping in to a deeper and darker hole than i have ever known...

all around me are those attempting to pour wisdom into my life, but i cannot hear them...

years ago, when i was about to have an abortion, my mother tried to persuade me not to by telling me of the joy beyond compare that i would only know from having a child...

for years after i wished i had listened...

and then, after coming to the Lord and marrying the man I love, when we came to have our chilcren, i got to experience a little of that joy and love i had heard about...

but no one ever warned me of the heartache, and rejection and dispair i would also know from that same child...

no one could have prepared me for the anguish i now face...

the day after day of not only being rejected repeatedly in every concieveable way, but also the watching her unabashed ease of loving, accepting and longing for every other breathing creature on the face of the earth besides me...

...

due to my current state of "woe is me" crap, it will probably be a really long time before i ever blog again...
but judging by the lack of comments lately, not that i ever got all that many any way, i doubt anyone will miss me much...

don't know when i'll be here again, so in the mean time-

these are a few of my favorite things:

*oh this look!!!

*and just look at those curls on the top of her pretty little head!!!


*lizzy's love for her daddy... even if it does leave me feeling a little like chopped liver a lot of the time...



*and, the cutest shoes ever...

and i just love finding outfits to go with...
...............................

so... i realized...

i never actually shared that i was going back in to the gathering.. in fact i haven't been very clear at all about our plans or happenings... maybe that is because i feel i am pretty much in the dark myself till the last minute possible, and then all of a sudden i see where i am... i guess i figured it only fair that no one be any more informed than i myself am... or, the obvious answer, had i known, i probably would've said so...

N-E-WAYS...

well, finally arrived.. safe and sound, in illinios... around 7 o'clock this morning, but since we passed out in between then and now, it feels like yesterday...

another thing is... i still feel like i'm in the process of adjusting to reality... life has been a little bit shocking as of late... not too bad though.. i mean i'm fed, my kids are well and fed well too.. things could be worse... but there still is this looming anticipation all about me.. this sense of something... coming... in some ways it has faded, and yet in others it has become more strong...

on another note, i also realized that if blogging is for writers, i have been treating as more of an improv outlet than a place to tell well rehearsed and final draft stories...

i write how i am right at that moment... whatever is on my mind... and if i have and idea for too long, the passion for it fades and i no longer know how to write about it....

and stories or ideas that i did manage to write on my computer, when i read them later they sound dumband annoying.... like this one for example:
.................................................................................................
I feel I am letting my identity slip away from me... like I am slowly becoming a stranger to myself...

Sometimes I wonder how much it really matters... if I even matter at all...

I mean who am I really? What role do I play in the Master plan of this so called Life?

But even if it is true, the sad part to me is that I don’t even seem to mind... I feel no urge within me to protest... I simply feel a meloncholy acceptance... or at least the registering of the facts, and the noted tinge of sadness mingled in...

I’m not angry. I’m not even fully desiring to blame anyone... If anything I expressly don’t want to do anything about it, or at least I have no idea what to do... I’m tired... tired of fighting, tired of caring, tired of trying... I just want to give up and see what comes of it... I don’t want to be anybody, let alone me...

Least of all me...
But I can’t honestly say that I want to be who I’m sensing myself to be becoming either...

Oh what to do...

I’m sure I can’t stay in this state for long...

I have too many people that depend on my coherency...

People who would have been done no good by being explained to...“Hold on baby, Mommy’s trying to figure out who she is right no, let her have some space...”

hmmm... don’t think that will quite work...

I guess there are some luxeries to sitting in a car for hours on end passing mind numbing landscapes, and the little ones have finally drifted off and the one who is considered your partner in life understands you a whole lott less than you do yourself...

I can have my own private little meltdown right here if I wanted...

but somehow it is not quite the release I long for... you know, like running through one of these seemingly endless feilds, screaming at the top of my lungs, the wind full force behind me, near ready to lift me right off my feet and up into the air... to the clouds even...

‘Oh had I wings, like a dove.. I would fly away and be at rest....’
...............................................................................................................

what kind of trip was i on?

hmmmmm....

i don't really have much to say... well actually i have near a million things to say... things i'm dying to write about, and pictures to go with... but i can't...

i guess there's lotts of reasons why... mostly the overabundance of things i've been storing up and haven't found the time are all conflicting with and confusing the heck out of each other, simply by being so squished together...

and then there is the time factor... the thing i have a whole lot less of on the road actually... this has come as a bit of a surprise to me i must admitt...

and then the fact that i have, once again, lost my usb chord for my camara... but that i blame on the rush-ed-ness of our move...

the rest i blame on the fact that i am, for lack of a better term, falling apart...

i do have some stories saved on my computer but i can't get wireless access right now so those too will have to wait for the glorious day when renee actually gets her @#^%! together, (if that day should ever come!!)

home at last...

ok not quite... but that is the thought at the fore-front of my mind... will it ever be so?

well, as far as my last post, i must say, once again, i have jumped ahead of myself in thinking things were worse than they are...
sometimes i am litterally blinded by my pride, and all it takes is just one little humble thought and an attempt to consider things from another's point of view and i am floored...

that is all to say i think ed and i were a little too attatched to Shekinah Cafe, and however understandable that may be, it still wasn't right for us to be assuming the worst...

but besides our aprehensions, there was a lot more i was going through as well... and still am i guess...

i feel like being a mom has made me a wimp... in a lot of ways... and this is a hard reality to face... though i am hoping it is not entirely true...

i realize i love4 the woods a lot less when my daughter can't for the life of her stay clean, or keep from being eaten alive by the mosquitoes which i only successfully keep at bay for an hour or two before the lotion wears off and i am distracted, and before i know it she lookeds like a diseased animal with big red bumps all over her face and dust and dirt caked to her snotty nose and collected on any and every wet spot on her clothes, as she happily picks up another two handfuls of dirt to pour on her head or throw at me...

and i realize that things really are a lot harder when you have kids... especially the energy level that decreased enough on it's own without the change in altitude that had us all dragging our feet and laying around in exsaustion every other hour or so...

and then the dissappointments of our collapsing oven, and stolen water line made things just a little too hard for me to bear...

i'd say at least i'm not the only one who had a hard time... rachel ended up leaving with her 3 kids after the same misfortunes as well as burns on her foot and a split open stubbed toe... but i think it only fair to say, she is by far much tougher than me... hope i'm not stealing any of her wind here by mentioning this... i'm sure she'll be writing as soon as she can...

anyways... here we are at yet another hotel, me having thrown up the whole way here, and adora having thrown up all night...

but hey... our laundry is done, and we are showered and bathed, and hopefully plannig to head out soon... we just have to go back in the gathering one more time to get all our stuff that we left set up, thinking we were just taking a mini break but given the circumstances of our unexpected sickness, we think it is time...

hallelujah, and heavy sigh... i really am sad by it i think.... i really wish i were up for staying... but my children come first and i think we put in our fair share, to say the least...

but this does give me thoughts of misgiving towards india...

am i really up for going to the country i have longed to go to for so long?
ameobic disentarie, gardia, malaria worms, leprosy... the list goes on....
i guess there are worse things though...
and i think all we have is a 24 hour flu... a few others were sick and recovered before we left...
well... pray for us.. we can't afford too many more nights in hotels... but don't want to drive just yet.. adora was still throwing up this morning, and i feel nautious and afraid to eat... meanwhile LoLo is working on a world championship for longest breastfeeding session...