Still the Same Star

Here she is - those beautiful sparking blue eyes and silly grin. She's wearing her favorite beach hat from the kite shop at Jockey's Ridge and her favorite t-shirt that says "Sophie's Beauty Hut" on the back.
And I LOVE this girl soo much.

She is still the same sweet girl she was before being diagnosed with Type I Diabetes yesterday.

But I am different. And the choices we'll make as a family are different; from what to eat, to where to live. I am amazed how quickly all of the things I used to concern myself with have dissappeared in an instant. And how issues that didn't concern me yesterday have parked themselves right smack in the middle of my world. I find my ignorance of this disease and ambivalence toward stem cell research embarrassing now. Amazed at what I took for granted just yesterday. More grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ than ever.

I finally fell asleep last night after forcing myself not to think of all the ways our lives have been changed, literally overnight. Or asking the inevitable questions, "Why?", 'why her?", 'why our family?', "why now with all of the changes she is already dealing with by virtue of her tender age?" 'was it because she inherited my screwy overactive immune system that turned on her own beta cells?" "Could we have done anything differently?" These questions don't help.
I have to remember that Heavenly Father has a plan for us, and for her, and, whether we like it or not, this is part of it.

My stomach is still churning and my hands tremble as I write this, but I do it in hopes that it will be like therapy for me - as writing my thoughts often has been a comfort for me. Potential titles to this post floated in my brain as I sat inthe ER yesterday with my girl: 'This changes Everything', 'What a difference a day makes,' etc.

But ultimately this is the right one. She is still the same smart, shy, silly, fun loving, Nancy Drew obsessed girl. She is still a star on the stage of our family's lives.

Feeling Squirrelish

Well, looks like the time has come. I can no longer ignore the need to organize, categorize, and inventory our food storage. Actually, we have been dipping into our food storage for quite some time now. We use the powdered milk, the oats, the sugar, the flour, the rice pretty much on a regular basis.

I just haven't really been thinking about restocking it as much as I should have been.

Until now, I haven't really been thinking about taking inventory to see just exactly what and how much we have left. We just added to it as the opportunity arose.

In fact, I was feeling pretty good about the fact that the space beneath my bed and my unusable shower was full of food storage. I felt like I could lay my hands on pretty much any staple I needed at any time. I've been a little laxidaisical about it because we've been in "temporary" mode for so long. My thinking was, why store all that food when we'll just have to move it sometime soon?

Last week, I gathered up all the food from its various hiding places and put it all together to see what we had in comparison to what is recommended.

Well, I'm not feeling comfortable any more. It seemed like so much more when it was scattered out all around the house.

So, now I'm feeling the need (not necessarily the desire) to fill every extra nook and cranny in my house with food storage. I'm dehydrating carrots raiding our savings to buy extra bags of flour and sugar. I'm really hoping that I'm not too late to be taking an intense interest in this.

Is it just me, or do my cheeks look puffy?

A Little Bit of Birthday

Yesterday was Big T's 37th birthday! We have been so busy around here that I didn't get a chance to plan as much as I would have liked. I know what a bummer it is to wake up on your birthday and realizing that no one made much of an effort. He says it's no big deal, but that we should let the kids enjoy it.

It was just a little family party. The kids were excited about pizza and the "fancy" cake--although, as usual I think it looked better than it tasted. the kids had fun decorating and making cards. It was fun watching them scurry around, planning their daddy's party. They planned games, but by the time we slogged though traffic and back home again, we were all tired and Big T decided watching a video would be just fine.

H-man made a special Lego creation to give to his dad--which was very touching considering his Legos are pretty much his most prized possessions.

All in all, a pretty low-key birthday. I worried that he'd be disappointed. But I don't think so... when they told him to make a wish, he hugged his kids and replied "all my wishes already came true".

Dude, Where's My Car?

My dear husband has amazing skills, and I'm not talking about bowstaff and numchuck skills, Kip. He grew an impressive vegetable garden this year and keeps the yard under control, he does most of our car maintenance, as well as plumbing, electrical work, drywalling, and pretty much any household repair--in fact, he's turned several ramshackle old houses into valuable income producing properties in his spare time. At his day-job as an accountant, he analyzes spreadsheets with the best of them and files a mean itemized tax return, and then, of course the best part:
he's a loving, patient and kind husband and father.
I tell ya - the man practically does it all !
Unfortunately for me, however, he wants to be able to do everything and he tries to do it all, and that recently translated to his attempt to fix my car--
about a month ago!
Probably not his best idea...To his credit he got good instructions and methodically followed them, got all the right tools and so forth, and tried really hard. But, when we turned the key...alas, nothing happened.
The towing and garage bill to repair my car is going to be more than we have stashed under the mattress. And my guy is working so hard on several fronts, I just don't know when I'll be able to start my baby up again. Greener, yes - but not by choice!
So I'll be carless for a while longer--I wish it was because I'm so thrifty and conscientious about the environment. Not so. It's because I had such faith in Big T to be able to do it, since he can usually fix everything.
And he will...eventually.