death, church work, and saveway chicken

There has been a rash of deaths in our church. No one I know. Thank goodness. but we have had a pile of funerals and the like.

I remember when my Grandparents died some people we knew brought some food... I remember some ham and a couple grocery store pies hanging around...when my Nana died.. and when my Papa died a month later no one brought much at all. Maybe a bucket of KFC or something.. but nothing like here in the South. Its a funny reaction people have.. OMG!! Your Daddy died? I'll make a chicken bog. A year or so ago Steven's great Uncle died.. when we got "the" call it wasn't so much about the funeral and stuff.. but more a call to come eat up some of the food. We ate and ate.. every time a new family came in.. We all got another plate of chicken or pie or whatever so as not to offend the offerer of whatever delicacy was being hauled in by the trunkfull.. His Aunt kept making sweet tea and coffee and someone kept going to the local convenience store for ice. Two liter drink bottle lined themselves up along the kitchen counter like tin soldiers. Finally I had to start doing dishes to keep my hands busy so his great Aunt wouldn't be offended when I didn't declare her poppyseed poundcake divine. it was either move away from the buffet or declare her poppyseed poundcake a sacrifice to the porcelain goddess ... to which everyone would have responded "awww bless her heart. She's overcome" Yeah no kidding. I needed some tums before I could even fold myself small enough to fit in the family limo.

Our specific church has a more mission impossible approach to feeding our bereaved families. We have "Bereavement Ministry Teams" (cue dramatic spy music) We are very high speed and have the art of feeding sad people down to an art. Recently I was asked to be a "team leader." I very quickly accepted the task. HAHHAHAHA I am "team leader".. you must bow to the "team leader"... of course I felt very very important.. then I realized that it was now MY job to arrange the casseroles for the family of the dead people. Ahhhh maaaaann Crap.

So when my team was "activated" yesterday I gathered the troops and planned a meal around the "ahem" scrumptious "Saveway Fried Chicken" that the ladies ministry of the church provides. I issued orders, delivery coordinates and we synchronized watches. I will be meeting with the ladies who agreed to provide a piece of the meal, picking up the yummy convenience store chicken and delivering the food at the home of the bereaved at 5pm.

Should be interesting since I have to pick Thing One and Curly top up at summer camp, will have The Little Man and Evie in tow and somewhere in there have to make an industrial sized vat of Mac and cheese, and a pound cake,AND plan and cook a dinner better than the dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets and tater tots we ate tonight. Steven was a trooper, but I think he was unhappy at working all day to come home to "kid food" Tune in to see how it turns out.

yay freaking hoo.

Someone I care about announced this week that she and her husband are expecting. I want to be so happy for them. And to help or whatever, especially since her family is far away.

Im just not equipped to deal with it. Not again, not so soon after I was so involved with the birth of Em. I cant I cant I cant.... today. Ill get over it, But I hate it..today.

I know that there are others who deal with a lot more.. since I have a biological of my own already. BLAH.. Its still the same ache. The same missing feeling. The same self esteem issues. I want my body to do something.. and it wont. It hurts.

Thats all I have to say about that.

home again home again.

I am back. We had a really great week. Camp was exactly as I remembered it. Little sleep and wide open all day long, only to have little sleep again. PHEW! I am not as young as I used to be. I rarely feel it. BUT wow. It took it out of me for sure! But honestly? If I weren't working? Id go back again next week! (I know I am a glutton for punishment)

Steven missed me.. and I really really missed him. Poor baby has pink eye really really bad. In fact he was sent home from his first week at work because he was oozing green stuff. (ew) We also lost a big chunk of the oak in our yard in a storm. Thankfully it just fell on the porch swing and nothing was damaged. Just knocked power off and reset the AC to 80 degrees so steven and the babies had one hot night.

A baby that I had been keeping, who's mother lost her joba few weeks ago, is back in my care. YAY! Means a little more money each week.. But should prove for interesting days when I start keeping tootsie. ( my cousin's baby Emma) But that isnt for another 2 weeks. So I'll be able to get everyone off and back from camp and my house back in order before I have six kdis from ages 2 mos -11 years to deal with.

I'll have something more meaningful to write about next time.. maybe ;)

hello muddah hello faddah...

I wont be checking in next week. I am off to spend a week giving back.. counseling at summer youth camp. My childhood memories of camp are so awesome. We had a little church camp on a lake about an hour from home. Little Beaver is another of my "happy places" The plumbing was iffy, and there was a "smell" to the dorms.. like wet dog and hairspray. But my spiritual experiences there make it El Bethel.. my hidding place. I loved it there. I worked there every summer from when I was 15. I was a camper, a kitchen worker, a counselor, a babysitter for the speakers kids.. I worked in the "snack shack" and helped in the rec shack. I pulled canoes and logged in lifevests. Until I was old enough to be a counselor, and then I did it year after year.One summer I went to camp in the last week of June and was there every week until August in one capacity or another. Great great memories.

And now my baby will start her camp memories this year... she'll attend the first week of July. And I will be off this week.. its not Little Beaver.. but it will be the same camp. Awesome memories, and a great time. Terrible food and worse beds.. but a hidding place from the world.

Oh Boy Alberto!!!

The first names storm of the season is blowing in my yard as we speak. Alberto is pretty tame.. just weepy. Weve had sooo much rain that everything in my house feels damp. The ceiling is leaky and I awoke this morning at 6 am to water pouring into my bedroom through the window where we have an air conditioner. Fortunatly I managed to catch it before it got all of the clean laundry that was in a basket below it. However my curtains did wick it up to make the folded t shirts that are stacked on top of a small dresser all wet.(we have NO storage space in this house, so our clothes are imaginatively stored in odd places) Thankfully though I think the rain is ending and the wind is pleasant. Tommorow is slated to be a scortcher though..

Thing two and I were delighted to be "puddle squishing" last evening,since it rarely rains here in summer, when there isnt lightening accompanying it we dont get to play in the rain too often, but since this was just rain she and I "squished" all the puddles in the yard on our way home from visiting with my parents. Her infectious giggle, and the delight she took in playing with me in the wet was worth cleaning up the muddy puddles in the hallway. After cleaning up, Things One and Two and I snuggled on the couch and watched one of my personal favorite movies "Summer Magic" with Hailey Mills and Burle Ives. Its a reaaly great one with fantastic songs that stick in your head for days... *sings* "Gotta crawl gotta crawl gotta crawl to the ugly bug ball to the ball to the ball, and a happy time we'll have there... one and all at the ugly bug ball"

Infertility Road

This blog might get a little touchy feely and pretty transparent. Maybe even a little gross... no apologies. Ive said a million times, if you are easily offended or dont want to know things that are semi-personal in a semi-annonomous way.. then go read something else.

Just to recap or whatever. Steven and I have been trying to have a baby for.. a really long time.Most people wait till they have been married a few years.. or have been together awhile. But we have NEVER used anything to prevent pregnancy. But then our relationship is like nothing I have ever seen before. We met and we just were.Like we were two halves of a whole.. automatically an "us". There was no wierdness. We didnt "date" in a traditional sense. Honestly. Our relationship has changed very very little since we first met.We have grown together of course. But,I knew from the first date that he was the one and I wanted to make a family with him.

We just havent gotten there yet, I have whats called Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. Most commonly known as PCOS or PCOD. In its most basic description, and in my case, its just insulin resistance. My body spends so much time dealing with the insulin I cannot process that it forgets to make enough progesterone, whose job it is to notify my poor confused ovaries to release an egg every month rather than hang onto it. The egg matures and gets all packed for the trip.. but it has a crappy travel agent. So it gets all pissed off and bitter, and throws up hard walls around itself creating an ovarian cyst (that occasionally get inflamed nad nasty they hurt like.. WOAH NELLY!)
A few other fun things that come with PCOS include Irregular or absent menses,
High blood pressure ,Acne, Migranes,impossibly high Elevated insulin levels (like three times what is normal the last time we checked),or Diabetes (not yet thank you Lord!)Excess hair on the face and body (I dont even want to talk about that.. its painfully obvious that I deal with it though.) Thinning of the scalp hair (not tooo bad yet) and not least but last Weight Problems.

With the birth of yet ANOTHER baby,I was reminded again of the destination of the road Steven and I are on.That its not just annoying detours, crappy truckstops and visits from the dreaded "Aunt Flo". A "blogfriend" (someone you know only through reading eachothers blogs and commenting to eachother) had a baby girl this week. She has seriously been through some stuff to have that little kid.She not only had PCOS issues, but dealt with the inability to maintain a pregnancy after she finally achieved it. I dont have that problem. I produced Thing Two with no problems. So anyway. This "friend" had her little Victoria after a really hard scary emergency c-section and a whole long time of trying.. She is really cool and fun and is going to make a kick butt Mama. It was touching.

But mostly it gave me some new resolve. There are some things I could be doing to make this better that I am not. Carbs are the ultimate enemy when dealing with insulin resistance.. so I need not eat them.. at all. So I am going back to seriously limiting them. I can do better. So If you know me, and see me eating carbs. Slap me..or not.

The Wearing of the Orange

Steven is now officially gainfully employed. He will be working at the brand spanking new HOME DEPOT in our local area, working in the paint department. I'll be frank, the pay isnt great. The benefits are so/so and there is a 40 minute commute involved. BUT its a job. And I am so happy just to have SOMETHING.. I cant tell you how happy. SOooo if any of you locals need paint? Steve-o is your man. The manager tells him that he has more paint and management experience than the dept manager... so there is room for upward movement. He starts week after next.

I havent been blogging much due to total full out busyness. Our church put on its annual Vacation Bible School FIESTA!! WOW, and we were wide open all week. It ran 400 nightly and was pretty successful. Tonight was the finale for the kids and they were all pretty wound up. There was a nightly offering contest between the boys and the girls... the childrens minister promising that the male staff members would COW TOUNGE TACO if the girls gave more, his wife and her counterparts promising to eat jalapenos if the boys were victorious. AMAZINGLY (and contrary to the laws of nature and probability) it was an EXACT tie... watching the staff choke down mexican cow tounge tacos was pretty funny. The youth pastor totally "tossed his toads" according to Thing Two, whom, as a lover of all things dissgusting was THRILLED.

We were on "vacation" from The Boy this week, and it was nice. He has been such a wild thing lately. But I am glad that they are home safely and will be back with us again next week. I'll be glad to be back into a routine with him once Steven goes back to work. Soon after I'll have Ms Em, since Steph is going back to work the week of July 4th.

Summer camps also start pretty soon. I will go Jun 19-23 and then Thing One the the week after. Finally Thing Two will venture out on her own.. soloing for the first time. THREE nights. Im struggling with the thought of it a little. But I know she will be in good hands since our own Kids minister will be preaching there that week meaning his wife and other staff memebers will be close at hand. She may even have a semi-family member as her "counselor" since Meg a cousin's girlfriend will be there.

We are heading to the beach tommorow to celebrate the new job. YAY