Disney Magic

Instead of filling endless packages with toys and gadgets that will end up lost, broken, forgotten, or yard-saled within a year or two, we decided to pool our resources (me, mark, my mom, and santa) for one big gift for our whole family. (My mom is the only grandparent we have left here on earth.)
The kids are thrilled! As I am typing this we only have 32 days before we board the ship.
We are sailing on the Disney Magic, which I have learned is Disney's largest cruise ship. This will be our first cruise, and our family's first Disney experience as well.
This is something we thought we would never be able to do for our children, but thankfully we have joined an amazing travel club and now have the opportunity to expand our horizons and give our children experiences we could have only dreamt of before.

Not getting better

I can list a million "reasons" things don't get better. Not in the right clique. Not at the right church. Not in the right job. Not in the right town. Not being raised with Christ at the center of the home, life, and heart. Too many heartaches. Too many let downs. Not enough help here. Too stubborn. No self esteem. Misunderstood. The list could go on and on.
And maybe all those things are true for you, maybe they are true for me. But this much I know is true, but until we decide to let go and let God, it's not gonna get better. Not permanently.
Sure, I've handed things over to God in prayer many times before. But then the next morning, or later on that same day, I pick back up whatever burden or worry I handed over to Him, and kept on trying to deal with it myself.
Is that really turning it over to Him? Is that what is asked of me? To ask for His help, but still act like He needs my help?
I don't know why I do this. But that's exactly what I do. Every time.
I pray for His help, guidance, wisdom. Yet as soon as that issue comes up, or a new one pops in, here I go all vigilante trying to handle my own business like I am able.
It's not out of a conscious lack of faith or trust on my part that I do this. It's not even a conscious decision to wrestle with what I have prayerfully asked for His hand to govern over. It's not something I mean to do. It just happens.
We must, I must, practice what I actually am saying to God when I tell Him I give it all to Him. I must learn to not just let him hold the problem for me til I am ready to wrestle with it again. I need to ask Him to take it far far away so that I won't try to fix it myself, or worry over it any longer.
To let go and let God.
Really let go, give away, never to see it again.
That is my goal.

help wanted

today i am writing asking for feedback, for help, for insights. our daughter is 14. beginning last december, she has had unexpected trouble with her back. the back pain has caused her to miss nearly the entire spring semester of her 8th grade year, and now she has missed a month of school thus far in her freshman year. she loves school. she was a cheerleader. she has always been a social butterfly, loving to be in the crowd. she has been to 2 children's hospitals, 2 rounds of PT, 2 rounds of chiropractic care, she has had bone scans, xrays, MRI's, cat scans, a spinal tap, blood work, and every other type of test you can imagine. no one has been able to give this child any relief or any answers. we were thrilled when this summer and into the fall her pain was gone, thinking maybe the medications were helping. yet now that the cold weather has set in, the pain is back and she has had to stop attending school. it just now hit us a few weeks ago that possibly the all the swimming she did this summer helped with the back, and now that she is no longer swimming, the pain is back. our pool is not heated, we do not have a YMCA here, and we cant think of anyone with a heated pool that we could just go take use of a few times a week to help her. however, even if we could, we still do not know why she is having such issues. she was diagnosed with celiac disease 4 years ago. she has been totally gluten free ever since. this spring when this back fiasco first started, a bone doc told her she had scoliosis, but that it was not bad enough to number or to cause pain. we are still stuck with no answers, no relief, and plan of action. we are in an appeal with her insurance company for more testing, as they have denied her another cat scan, yet will approve all the narcotics in the world. she will not take those narcotics tho. they do not help her. they do not phase her pain or her speech or her motor function or anything at all actually. so we do not get the filled. pointless. anyway, does anyone out there have any experiences they could share, any hospitals, clinics, doctors on this planet that can and will help my child? this mom has had enough of not being able to help her child and not even knowing why.

thankfulness

what are you thankful for today? after all, today is the day, well now half a day if we are lucky, we set aside to point out what we are thankful for. if you ask my 5 year old son, today its teenage mutant ninja turtles. for me its actually the same thing just a few months ago i was whining about. money. no, our finances haven't hit the jackpot. they are actually on a slight downturn from a couple months ago. thats my fault, and another blog post. i am actually thankful that we didn't have the cash to begin Christmas shopping just yet. i wasn't tempted to leave my family early to go get the best deal at the local walmart, or get up at 3am to drive an hour to the nearest mall. (now if a friend had asked me to go, i probably would have just because i am a blue and all about the fun). anyway, i am thankful i am not in the insanity that so many of us are. if you are out shopping the black friday madness, then please, take a breath and enjoy the experience. enjoy the ability to be out. enjoy being. as for me and mine, we had a nice slow paced little thanksgiving. just me, my hubby, our 4 kids, and my mom. my mom came to our house and we had a great meal, at like 4pm. haha. the positive in eating so late...it was breakfast, lunch, and dinner. so i could go back for cake AND pie, and that was ok, because it was the only meal i had today. oh, and i now have installed blogger on my phone...so maybe now i can recommit to blogging, and stick with it this time. i just know the cyber world will be rejoicing soon!

sorrow

this past saturday evening a friend of ours texted me. it read, "have you heard what happened here? i am a wreck." because my iphone went swimming i am using my moms old phone and don't have all of my contacts in there. i had to ask who the text was from, and what happened where. the reply came with her name, and that a little boy had drowned in their pool. my friends daughter is 17, and she had a coworker over visiting. this coworker is 18 and has 2 year old son. he was playing with my friends 5 and 7 year old boys while the older girls visited. my friend and her hubby were not home. the little boy managed to unlock the back door, get outside, and into the family's above ground pool. they were unable to save him, even with the 17 year old performing cpr. such a sad sad situation. such a tragedy. i dont even know the little boy or his family, yet my heart is breaking for them. my heart is breaking for my friend and her family as well. they are amazing people who i trust fully, they have kept my kids before both at my home and theirs. as has the 17 year old daughter as well. this could happen to anyone folks. anyone with a toddler knows the speed and quietness at which they can travel. its superhuman. saturday night i went to walmart and purchased alarms for my doors, and had the hubby install 2 on our back door that leads to our pool area. i also got online and ordered an alarm for our pool, http://www.yardandpool.com/PoolEye-Universal-Pool-Immersion-Alarm-p/pe23.htm and it is scheduled to ship today and be here in 2 days, so wed or thurs at the latest i should have it here and installed! sure, we just had a new fence put up. it has locks and is extremely sturdy. our kids know they are not to be back there without us. but kids dont always follow rules. and visiting friends may not know the rules. or neighborhood kids could see a gate open and wander in. or teenagers who like to "pool hop" could accidentally get hurt while going around the neighborhood hopping from one home's pool to the next. you just never know. please pray for everyone involved in this tragedy.

Bills, Shmills

Bills. Yay. What fun, what joy they bring to our lives. To open the mailbox, hoping for a huge check from publishers clearinghouse, only to find tons of envelopes and post cards, none of them sending you money, but all of them reminding you to send them money. You'd think they'd return the favor a few times a year, wouldnt ya? My question, and yes I want you to answer, is this. How do you and your spouse divvy up the bill paying? Do you combine both of your earnings into one pot and then pay all the bills out of that pot? Why? Do you do a his and hers type set up, where he pays a portion of the bills and she pays a portion of the bills? Why? If they are in a one pot process, who is in charge? Why? We have tried several different methods over the years to see what works best for us. We have done it with me being in charge of the pot. We have tried it with him being in charge of the pot. Both have pros and cons. For the next few months we are going to try this his/hers method. I dont know what is going to work best. I dont suppose it really matters so long as it all gets paid, right? But for curiosity sake, I wonder what other families do and why. Do you have any great pointers to share, or any great failures to share? I know for us our greatest failure is lack of organization. If the bills dont get put in the same place no matter who checks the mail....well, you can imagine how that goes.

Welcome back to me!

Welcome back to the blog world, Gretchen. I finally found the time and the want to to sit down and figure out my password and be able to sign into my blog! Almost 3 years later! Redic, I know! Oh well, better late than never, right? So I am really looking forward to getting back into blogging. I have alot to say and not alot of people to say it to. So hopefully I'll connect with some friends, new and old, through this blog and we can share the good, the bad, the ugly, the gross, the funny, etc etc. Since 2009, our family has moved into what I hope is the home we live in for a long long time. Been here since July 2010. In August of 2010, we had a new son, Peyton Knox. We call him Knox. He will be 2 this August. Lacee will be 14 and a freshman in high school this fall. Mark Anthony will be 7 soon and will go to the first grade. Tommy will be 5 and hopefully in the local pre-k class at the elementary school we send our children to. Mark is still a sgt for the local police department, and I am still a stay at home mom. I also provide childcare in my home for other sweeties while their mommys and daddys work or further their education. We have a pool in our backyard!! =) hip hip hooray! and even better, we opened it for the first time this year! It looks like a storm is upon us here, so I am gonna sign off for now! I'm gonna have to relearn how to post pics and fancy up my blog a bit...