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...

hard to believe

it is hard to believe that christmas is right around the corner. my christmas cards should arrive today, i ordered them off snapfish this weekend. they are going to be precious, my favorite ones we have had so far! i have to mail some of them as soon as i get them, as it will take around 4-6 weeks for my family in europe to get theirs. i guess i will wait to mail the rest of them till around the first of december.
it is hard to believe that my daughter is almost halfway through her first year at middle school. some of her former closest friends dont come around as much. they are still friends, no worries, just finding new friends as well. lots of new friends have been coming over, which is great too. we must always cherish our friends. and thankfully, she hasnt brought home any friends that have caused me any alarm. she got in a great group of classes surrounded by tons of great kids and has great teachers. they teachers even say they are having a great year. wonderful! about a month or so ago, a couple of 20 something year old girls from church took lacee and a friend to the movies. sitting right behind them was a girl from lacee's class, with a boy, kissing. they werent pg-rated kissing either. lacee was shocked and thought it was gross. i dread the day that it isnt gross anymore.
it is hard to believe that mark anthony is 4 years old. that he could potentially go to kindergarten next year. i havent made my mind up on that one yet, i will wait to see what his preschool teacher says she thinks is best for him. financially, him going to kindy would be great b/c its free. but i will not rush my children to school just to save a dollar. (well, lots of dollars). he is so smart. he is such a boy. wild and hyper and unable to be still very long at home or church or anywhere basically with mom and/or dad, yet perfectly still, attentive and eager to learn at school and in sunday school.
it is hard to believe that tommy is already 2. he is flirting with potty training. he is gaining more and more vocabulary so fast. he is so sweet, so passionate when he is happy. so angry when he is angry. he thinks he is as big as his brother and his sister, and gets upset when he cant do what he wants. he also loves going to school and church. he has no desire to be quiet during church, and i wonder when or if that will change.
it is hard to believe that mark and i will have been married 8 years in less than a month. 8 years! thats a long time. its been a wonderful 8 years! has every day been rosy, no. but more of them have been rosy than stinky. i am blessed to have him as a husband, my children blessed to have him as a daddy.
it is hard to believe that money stinks as bad as it does. 8 years and we still are not where we need to be. no savings. no extra. still robbing peter to pay paul so to speak. its true, our budgeting skills are not the greatest, but we do not blow money. we have amazingly low rent for our home (that we plan to buy within 2 years), we have light bill, water bill, cellphone bill, tv/internet bill, 1 vehicle payment (we didnt have a vehicle payment for almost 2 years till my van broke), groceries, gas, childcare, and tons of doctor bills. and a bank note on a consolodation loan from several years ago. thats it. no furniture payments, no stereos, appliance, credit cards, 4 wheelers, boats, etc. we havent been on a vacation in 7 years. its depressing. now i know money and things are not the most important things in the world. our family has each other, love, God, and all the basics we need. yet i long for the day when we dont have to wait for the next paycheck to be able to pay the rent or the lights. when our children ask for a certain jacket or shoes that we are able to get them for them if we choose to.
it is hard to believe that my mom will be 60 soon. in 9 days actually. wow. we arent as close as we were when she turned 50, but we are closer than we were when she turned 58 or 59. i miss the days when we were super close, but i am happy for the progress we are making.
it is hard to believe that my daddy has been dead for 12 years. i miss him terribly. i wish he could meet mark and my kids. i know he will someday.
it is hard to believe that marks daddy is also gone, he has been gone 7 years. he loved lacee, and we know he would have loved the boys too. he will meet them someday. i wonder if he and my daddy watch us together.
it is hard to believe that marks mom is in the nursing home, and that she has been there for over a year now. she went from being able to drive, shop, cook, etc to being a complete victim of alzheimers and dementia in 3 months, and now it is hit or miss that she knows who mark is when he goes to visit.
it is hard to believe that i have family in europe i still havent met. my mom reunited with her siblings after 50+ years (she was adopted). they all live in europe. 5 in germany, 1 in spain, and 1 in turkey. mom went to germany in 2006 and met everyone. i have meet the ones that have came here. first was karl-heinz, my uncle. he came in 2005. then came my aunt heidi and her husband willi. they came in 2007, the day tommy was born actually. this past summer, my aunt brigetta and my uncle's wife uri came. i still have not met peter, helmut, willi, or monica. nor have i met any of the kids and grandkids. i priced round trip airfare for my family and my mom and its over $10,000. it doesnt look like we will be going anytime soon.
it is hard to believe that we will soon, not sure how soon, but soon, be getting to see marks neices and meeting their children. they live in georgia and we havent spoken to them in 7 years, give or take a possible hello once or twice. andrea and i have been talking alot on facebook, and have enjoyed one phone call this week. she calls me aunt gretchen, and i love that. andrea and rebekah are 28, twins from marks half sister, who is 19 years older than him. the age makes me feel like they should be my sister in laws. but they can call me aunt gretchen and we can laugh and cut up like the sisters i never had.
it is hard to believe when blessings come from the most unexpected of sources. thats how God likes it, i suppose. we had a communication breakdown with the director of the boys preschool with regards to a possible scholarship and ended up with a 2 month balance we could not pay. we had to pull the boys out of school for a month, they finally went back this week and were so excited! having them cry to go to school was heart breaking. the balance is not paid in full, but a wonderful lady, a friend i met only last year, is helping us with it. i did not ask her for help, she seen me crying one day picking up mark anthony (the school allowed him to go on a field trip one day during the month) and she asked me what was wrong. i told her, and she insisted on helping. i am so grateful to her. i dont have the right words for her, i just pray that someday we will be able to help someone in the same situation.
its hard to believe that after the mistakes i made in middle school, high school and the year that followed that God has blessed me with the life i have now. i have a wonderful family, wonderful friends, a job i love, and a promised land beyond my widlest expections. and that is hard to believe too because my imagination can run pretty wild!