good prospects

well, had a job interview today, and it looks promising. she didn't really ask me anything about me -- spent most of the time explaining the job and policies, so i think that's a pretty good sign. will see in a few days!

clay is doing goood on the potty -- peed as soon as put him on this time, so that was cool. :) i think he's getting it. :)

a note to a certain friend who's hotmail is not working...

since your hot mail doesn't work, i thought i would mention that pepto contains aspirin (i didn't know this til my teacher told us) so kids aren't supposed to have it either, b/c aspirin can cause reye's syndrome in children (and babies of course).

for the rest of you who are wondering, 'what the heck?", please disregard. lol

crazy as usual

we have had an unbelievably crazy week here. nick is still sick, and i am as well, though i hope its not what he has. i just can't seem to stop coughing, and my ribs hurt from all the work.

however, i was glad to be home monday to watch "heroes"; i missed the last two episodes. no doubt it will become a cult classic and the dvd set will be on sale at wal-mart next christmas.

clay has woken up dry twice and then gone potty! he has his own special "builder bob" seat, and he likes to sit there and read magazines. well... i never have time to read them so this is good. however, he has a cold too, and is a bit cranky, so we've all just been sitting around the house and being lazy.

thanksgiving for us was a bit lazy. we had *gasp* ham, stovetop stuffing, and instant mashed potatoes. i didn't feel like cooking... and nick didn't have much of an appetite anyway. and hey, it wasn't my cooking, he just didn't have an appetite.

however, i know he is starting to get better cuz he wanted some takeout monday night, and yesterday he wanted to go out to eat.

so hopefully we'll see a marked improvement soon.

as for me, when i can stop coughing like a 5-pack-a-day-smoker, maybe i'll start feeling better. :P

i'm out for now...

adieu!

hangin in there

nick is still sick, but getting better (finally). ironically, now i'm coming down with some wicked virus, tho not as serious as nick's. i've got a major head/chest cold, and feel like someone has plugged my sinuses with cement. i'm sure you're all thanking me for that vivid mental picture.

not much else is going on. clay used the potty for the first time yesterday, so that was cool. :) he thought it was fun. lol. imagine getting excited about someone using the toilet. but there ya go -- such is the life of a parent. we get excited about lots of stuff like that. :P

other than that, not much going on, just taking it easy at home and trying to get well, so by the time we go to england, we all feel relatively healthy!

tomorrow, we go to the doctors to get more tests done, and talk to liver specialist. we're going to see if his liver has gotten better over weekend -- they discontinued the IV med (amphotericin) after his liver enzyme count was higher (slightly worse). hopfully, with the d/c'ing of the med, his liver will have gotten back to normal, or at least started. not sure what the next course of action will be if it has NOT improved... but don't want to think that way yet. keep prayin'!

fingers crossed!

the quiet voice

Quote: "Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.' "

i always thought courage was being fearless, but strength doesn't have to mean that you're not afraid. sometimes strength means that you are afraid, but you face it anyway.

i've learned alot about courage this week. and strength. nick has been in the hospital with pneumonia since monday, and i've tried to be at his side as much as i can. between taking care of things at home and work and school commitments, i haven't been there as much as i want to be. and clay has to stay with mom, so i miss him as well. but there was that quiet voice telling me to see what tomorrow would bring, that it would get better...

i've been doing ALOT of praying this week. probably more praying than i've done all year. sometimes... we take what we have for granted. i never realized how much i did it, but when you almost lose something that you love, suddenly you realize just what you have.

most of you know that all this week he was there, and just not getting better, and the doctors couldn't figure out what was going on. well, finally yesterday, the doctors thought they knew what was going on, and started him on a very strong antibiotic, and it started working. he started getting better.

seeing him this morning, and realizing the difference was like turning on a light in a dark room. and he's not ready to go home yet... but that was how sick he was before. and i was just trying to get thru each day and deal with it, and try not to worry or be afraid; but he was, and still is, very sick. yes, he's better, but still quite weak, and i think it will be awhile before he's 100%.

the doctors are pretty sure he has histoplasmosis, which you can get from birds. he was knocking down a bunch of swallows' nests about a month ago, so that makes sense. scary, though, that some stupid birds could cause so much damage. what's really hitting me right now is that histoplasmosis can be fatal.

i could have lost him. it's just hitting me now. kind of like how a sand castle crashes onto the beach when the tide comes in. i just feel overwhelmed by the realization of how close we came to it. but that's how life is; its like the sea. we can't do anything to stop some of the events in life, no more than we can stop the tide coming in.

but sometimes being strong is not the ability to stand against the tide, it is the knowlege that the tide will go down again, and it is the strength to wait it out.

the waiting was the hard part. the wondering. the hoping. the praying. now, the tide has gone down, and my walls have come crashing down, with the tide; but there's also relief and peace that surrounds me and carries me through it.

becasue i realize that even in the midst of the darkest moment, when i felt totally under water, God was there. and even though my own defenses crumbled and i realized i wasn't as strong as i thought i was, he was there, catching me when i fell, and gently carrying me.

sometimes courage is simply faith. and trusting when you have no answers.

tired

nick is still sick... i've been nursing him all day. i told him to do it himself once and he said i was a bad nurse. lol. i retorted that if i was working as a nurse, i'd be getting paid for it, and that would be my job; i would be trying to do 100 other different things as well. :P

at any rate, i'm exhausted. i made some little wool pants for clay from an old sweater and they are adorable. lol. nick asked if i thought clay had a super huge butt or something, because they have a big butt to fit over the cloth nappies. :P actually, i got the pattern off line, and they are aptly named "butt sweaters". hmmmm...

but i'll take a pic so you can see; they do look rather big-butted. hehehe...

so yeah, i've had an intersting night. nick saying he was hungry; me making something he said he was hungry for, then him saying, "i can't eat this, i don't have an appetite." he did this three times! *sigh*

but he sounds funny. his voice keeps cracking because he's losing his voice. haha... :P

(its only funny when it happens to someone else)

well, i'm off... i am going to try and go to bed and hopefully fall asleep before he comes up, or i'll be kept awake by his coughing. lol... that sounds really selfish when it's written down. :P

but i'm still going to do it.

i started a new business!

hi all... just started a home business with a great company so that i can stay home more with clay. i'm really looking foward to that -- i hate having to leave him all the time!

anyway, check out my website sometime -- the company is called Stayin' Home and Lovin' It!

here is my website: Click Here!

anyway, i am thinking this will really work for me -- the products are stuff that people actually use, and i don't have to have any home parties! yay! that's appealing to me... i'm not exactly the pushy type, so i can't ever get people to have shows! lol.

anyway, i'm excited about it.

:D

the big ONE! :D

here's some pics of clay's birthday party. we got him a bouncing tigger, which he loved. :) he also is quite a fan of chocolate, as you can see from the pics. :)

i am blessed

i met a homeless guy monday. his name was jason. he was waiting for a taxi to take him to a hotel for the night; he'd scraped together $40, and hoped it would get him a room, so he could get a decent night's sleep and a shower.

he looked like he was about 50. he looked haggard, and exhuasted, and his eyes had lost hope. he looked like he'd been through alot. but after we got to talking, i found out he was only 29.

29. one year older than me. but such different lives. me -- a warm, loving family that i looked forward to going back home to. him -- no home, no warmth, no love; no one waiting for him.

how awful . how truly awful. here, i had been stressing about the water in the basement, and school work and my job. and here was a man who truly had nothing.

i realized, on my silent ride home, just how lucky i was. i realized, just how flimsy our grasp on security can be. people don't just wake up homeless one day. but they cannot always control the events that cause them to end up there.

not every homeless person is a drunken bum, asking for handouts. it could be the man who lost his job due to layoffs and couldn't pay the mortgage. or the family who lost their home because of medical bills for a sick child. they may not have family or friends close enough to help them out -- or may be too ashamed to ask for help.

in fact, may of us could be about two mortgage payments away from homelessness. i'm getting laid of myself in december, and while i know we'll be able to get by, its still a sobering thought. i never thought it would happen; getting laid off. i thought if i was a good worker that i'd never have to worry about it.

and i've been looking for work, and still haven't found anything; hopefully by december, i will have. but the point is, that if i wasn't married, and didn't have my family close by, there'd be a pretty big chance that if i didn't find a job, i'd be on the street too. because i dont' see how i'd make it on my own.

so tonight, i'm feeling very grateful for what i have, and very blessed. when i get home, i'm going to hold my family tight and tell them i love them.