Welcome, Autumn Time!

 



I have officially survived the first 3 weeks of school!  Oh my goodness did I have some major anxiety over starting school again.  It's been over 4 years; never thought I'd go back!  Still not sure why I'm doing it, but as me and Scott's creed goes, When we ignore promptings, we end up in Texas.  So it's off to school I went.  I'm exhausted, but managing.  

So far my biggest trials have been 1. Confidence.  2. Time management.  Neither of which I'm real great at.  The confidence issue - I'm hoping will improve with time.  I've always been really good at academic writing; it's always come very easy to me.  Getting my first couple papers for Shakespeare class done proved otherwise!  It was so frustrating to me!  However, I'm finding the more I write, the more it flows.  I just haven't done any writing - academic or otherwise in 4+ years. I've missed it.  I'd like to get back to my novel at some point!

Time management: this one has been tough for me.  And really, it doesn't need to be.  But for someone that suffers from chronic fatigue (thank you, endometriosis and depression.  you suck!) it actually is.  Given the opportunity to sleep, I'll generally choose sleep.  But I had an apostrophe (Scott gets this when I say it - he even replies with 'That must have hurt."  Go watch "Hook" if you're confused) Anyway, I had an apostrophe - when one gets up at a decent time, one can accomplish more.  You don't say?!?  So budgeting my time is a new skill that I'm learning.  Sadly, quilting just isn't in the budget right now.  The adorable fabric I bought for a Christmas bedspread is calling to me; mocking me.  But when I have spare time, it's spent with my Very-Own-Honey and my fur baby.  (Who is currently snoring on his pillow that we have set up next to the desk). 

 One of the bonuses of having a puppy is that I have to walk him - and am thoroughly enjoying our walks now that it's cooled down and the leaves are turning.  The coming of my favorite season brings a LOT of distractions for me!  I love Fall!!!  Baking, walks or drives to see colored leaves, listening to and smelling the clean air, football (yeah - you read that correctly), or curling up with a blanket and book!   And pumpkins.  Lots of pumpkins.



Snoopy represents me whilst reading Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus".  Maybe not the worst play ever as I'd previously stated, but pretty close. 

Well it's almost been a year since I've written on my blog!   I have to say that I've thought about it a lot, and had things I wanted to write about, but I forgot my password and couldn't recover it forever.  This time I was smart and I wrote it down :)   I really need to be better about writing because it's so therapeutic for me.
Anyway, I will start out by telling about the day I lost my dad.  Or the day dad became lost - not sure which it is, actually.  It all started over two years ago after Dad (hereafter referred to as Gary) was diagnosed with kidney cancer.  The cancer was contained, so the Doctor was able to simply remove the kidney without having to worry about chemo or radiation.  Simple enough, yes?  Well, something happened.  We don't know what.  Something kinda snapped in him and he hasn't been the same since.
A few weeks after he came home from the hospital I got a phone call at work from my mom saying that a neighbor had called and said they found Gary wandering around the neighborhood and he wasn't sure where he was or what was going on.  Thankfully I was off work early as Mom was stuck and couldn't leave.  So I went to their house and took him back to our apartment that was a few blocks away at the time.   He was so disoriented & confused, he wasn't even sure where we were going, though he'd been to our apartment several times.  He was having trouble walking so I helped him into our place and got him down on the couch and comfortable. 
As a side note, Chewy knew something wasn't right with his Papa.  He stayed right with Gary and cuddled with him.  I'd have thought it was really cute if I hadn't have been so worried about him!
Moving on, things were starting to get scary.  He would try to talk but would forget completely what he was trying to say, his eyes would close and he would start to sway.  I tried to keep him "awake", but the pupils of his eyes were almost gone they were so small; all I could see was the blue and he couldn't focus on anything. 
This went on and on and I finally went into the bedroom & cried!  I called Mom and told her what was happening and she immediately called his neurologist. 
After a lot of tests, it was determined that he was having frontal lobe seizures.  Not a thrashing and foaming kind of seizure, but the front part of his brain sits and fires repeatedly and quickly.  Thankfully, it can be controlled with medication and he seemed to be doing well.
However, once we got the seizures under control, we started noticing other changes in him.  He would still get really confused; not be able to do simple things he normally would be able to do; no filter on his mouth - he'll say whatever he feels like!  Which can be funny, can be embarrassing.  His reasoning skills were also lacking.  A lot.  Increased depression, anxiety, and some obsessive behavior.   At time, particularly when he was over tired, he would mix up things he used to teach with his own memories.  I got to hear all about his time in German internment camps...yeah. 
With all of these issues, Mom begged us to move back in to the basement apartment of their house to help out.  At this time we had just placed an offer on a townhouse, it was accepted, and we were SO excited to be getting our own place.  But we knew we needed to help out with my parents.  Gary just couldn't be alone for long periods of time and between my work schedule and mom's he was only alone for a couple of hours, which was manageable.  
So that has been our life for the last two years.  We worked, Scott went to school, and we took care of Gary & helped Mom out emotionally and with other stuff.  It's been hard.  Really hard at times.  He's just not my dad anymore.  My dad could fix anything!  And if he didn't actually know what he was doing, he could MacGyver it :)   He was a history professor.  Granted, I don't need to know the history of the freeway, but he always made for interesting dinner conversation.  Now it's all gone.  I've dealt with it, mostly in jest because it's easier to make things funny, other wise I'd just cry.
Fast forward to July - Gary has a stroke to add to everything else. 
Really universe?  Really?!? 
Okay, I'm over it now.  Sorry about the novella, but I needed to get this down for me more than anything.  It's been hard, but we do it.  There are times when Scott and I are convinced that we are being prepared for a special needs child and we then consider taking our profile off the LDSFS adoption website.  But we keep it there, having faith that we can handle whatever comes our way.  Sometimes, Gary has really bad day and I think I can't help them anymore.  It's too frustrating.  But we do it anyway.  Scott is so much more patient than I am!  I don't know what I'd do without him!  What a trooper he is to help take care of my crazy parents.  I know he didn't sign on for that!  I attribute it to his amazing parents who taught him the importance of family and their "that's just what you do for family" attitude. 
I don't share this to make you feel sorry for me. 
I share for my own sanity.
So there you have it.

Family Pics

Our case worker has been after us to get some updated professional pictures for our adoption profile; so we finally caved and did it.  We attempted to get a few with Chewy, and to honest, he did really well.  However, there were several pictures where he proudly displayed his man-junk.  Nice.  I won't expose you to those.  Anyway, here's a few that are okay looking that we didn't post on facebook.

 

 

YNP '12

July 5 -8 was our annual Yellowstone trip! Scott and I love it there. It's our happy place :) This year we decided to invite niece Kylie and nephew Brady to come with us. We had so much fun! Scott and I realized really quick that we are way too out of shape to keep up with two teenagers. It was go - go - go - but really fun! We rented an SUV (forgot to get a pic) for extra room and off we went. I didn't take a ton of pics - I feel like sometimes vacations are ruined and you miss things because one is so worried about getting that perfect pic. Anyway, pic one - I'm dangerously close to a buffalo. The pic is zoomed, but I was admittedly way too close. As my sister put it, "natural selection at it's finest" watching people walk right up to it and try to touch it. Brilliant.

We saw several really big bull elk! Usually we see lots of females around but rarely the male. This guy was right up next to the road and ignoring everyone around him.

Brady, Kylie and Scott by Old Faithful geyser. It was fun to take the kids as they hadn't been to YNP since they were really little - so it was all new to them. Funny comments from people about "both our kids wearing Angel's hats." We laughed about it a lot at some of the comments about how young of parents we were.

Also ran into my sister Sue and hubby Scott at Old Faithful. Funny ole world in'it?

Yellowstone lake

The Dudes outside Playmill theather.

Lower Falls overlook.

Grizzley bear at the Grizzley Discovery Center.

We took the stairs on "Uncle Tom's Trail" down to the Lower Falls. WOW!

View was amazing. Stairs and steep trail = Scott and I huffing and puffing, Kylie and Brady not even breaking a sweat. Awesome.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

Lower Falls overlook.

Scott at the bottom of "The Stairs" at Lower Falls. (Isn't he handsome?)

Kids at dinner. We explored some different dining options in West Yellowstone; found most of the places have the exact same menu at ridiculously high prices.

Main reason for our trip to YNP this year: Other nephew Brian Carey is in the cast of the Playmill Theater in West Yellowstone. He is having a blast and the shows are great! Brian posing with Kylie and Brady during the pre-show.

Brian after "Annie Get Your Gun". He did such a great job!

Below - video of Brian playing the fiddle in the preshow!

Vegas Baby!

We decided to hit Las Vegas for an overnighter to see "The Phantom of the Opera" which is set to close in September. We stayed at the Venetian...oh my goodness. Amazing hotel!! All other hotels will seems like dives in comparison.






Outside the "Phantom" theater. The theater was specifically built in the Venetian to house "Phantom". The chandelier was amazing, the whole atmosphere made you feel like you were in the time period. The show was a bit chopped up - they edited bits and pieces to make it shorter, but still was amazing.





The canal inside the hotel. We didn't get a chance to do a gandola ride - next time!

Good Day

I usually mentally check-out of Mother's Day but I had a really good day. We taught our class, made dinner for my mom and visited with family.






The little angel on the left we've had for a while; we got it to represent our first baby we lost. We thought this was perfect because the little puppy she's holding looks just like Chewy ;) Then Scott bought me the little boy angel and gave it to me Mother's Day to represent our 2nd angel baby. I cried a little when I opened it, but I'm so glad to have both of our little angel's represented!

Oh Yeah - I have a blog!

I've been totally MIA in the blogisphere for a while!  So here's a little picture catch up!

I know no one else cares about Chewy but I'm posting these anyway.  Nana was sitting reading the paper and the Demon-Dog came and about scared her half to death.  It was great.

 Scott and I took Lincoln and Lleyten to see the Muppet movie over Thanksgiving break.  They wanted pictures with Obi Wan so Scott lifted them up to get their little heads in the hole.  So cute.

 Elder Brian Carey came home from his mission right before Christmas.  So fun to have him home!  I still can't believe I have TWO return missionary nephews now.  I'm old.

 Scott tinkering with one of his train sets.  This is what he does on breaks from school.  I bought him the engineer hat for Christmas and he faithfully wears it whenever he gets his trains out.  I love that I'm married to an over sized kid. 

 Got us all jammie pants for Christmas (except Scott who refuses to wear them).  So we had to take pics - and darling little McCoy in his Darth Vader jammies!  Love that kid. 

And in other news....

The adoption process is just that: a process.  An emotional, annoying, maddening process.  I'm sure once we get placement we'll be able to add joyous and other good adjectives in there but right now it's just work. 
We took a small break from it in November/ December when the Lord decided to test our faith - with a really unexpected and positive result.  No - I'm not pregnant.  I'll just throw that out there right now so no one gets their hopes up ;) 
It all started one night in November when Scott and I were discussing what we needed to do the next day - one of which was pay the $1000 initial fee to LDS Family Services.  Suddenly I just kept having this feeling that we needed to wait.  I told Scott and he shrugged and said "okay".  The next day I was cleaning the house and thinking how weird it was that I had the impression to wait when I got a complete bombshell impression:  Try one more IUI.
No. 
No way.
I've closed that door.  We felt SO strongly about adoption.
No.
I had this nice internal argument on all the reasons why I refuse to do that.  But the impression kept coming and I couldn't deny it.  I called Scott and told him and got a "Where did THAT come from?"   I fought it and fought it and cried and cried.  That fertility door was closed for me and it's such an emotional and painful thing I just couldn't do it.  I just wanted to know WHY.  Why was I being asked to do something so painful again?  Get our hopes up again and heaven forbid lose another baby? 
After a couple of weeks of fighting  it, Scott brought up a good point; a statement that will define the rest of our lives:  Well, when we ignore promptings we end up in Texas.
After we got done laughing, I realized he was right.  So in December we started on the devil fertility meds; the specialist up in Sandy ordered a bunch more tests - some we'd already done but whatever- then we did the insemination. 
And then we started to get excited.
I mean, why would we be asked to do it if it wasn't going to work, right? 
And then came all the awesome side-effects of fertility meds.  My assistant manager at work even sent me home early because I was an absolute *$#2&.  And after snapping at Scott a few times and not letting him near me he said, "Oh yeah - this is why we don't do fertility anymore." 
Well, I was late and we started to get even more excited and then quickly found out it didn't take and we were devastated again.  Then we started discussing everything and praying and we realized: this was a confirmation to us that we were on the right path with adoption.  There was still that little hope in the very backs of our brains that we'd get pregnant while filling out paperwork.  But our hearts and our brains are now turned to adoption and we know that it's the right path and choice for us.  It's taken us a while - everyone has to go through the process in their own way and get their own answers.  We wanted to be sure and 100% on board before we moved ahead with it.  I've tried and prayed and tried some more to not be bitter.  I wanted to be able to hold my head up and be okay with things.  That doesn't mean that every now and then it doesn't hurt a little.  That doesn't mean that as I'm filling out the mammoth adoption questionnaire that I don't get annoyed at the complete social injustice of the thing.  But I can laugh when my Dr. says a 3% of conceiving on our own is being generous;  I'm genuinely happy when my friends tell me they're pregnant.  I had to get to a place that I was happy despite this infertility crap.  Scott and I figured out over a year ago that we were wasting our time together worrying and stressing about not being able to have babies.  It can take over your entire life and screw up a marriage if you let it! 
So here we are.  We're good :)  We're almost to the home study, we just have to get our background checks back and suffer through an hour long interview (independent of each other) with our case worker.   AND Scott is set to graduate in December!!!!  Hale-freakin-lujah.  We're excited by life; we're excited about our future as completely unknown as it is to us.  We've FINALLY figured out that Heavenly Father is in charge and we're good with that.