To Become Real

“To become a real boy, you must prove yourself brave, truthful, and unselfish.” 

― Pinocchio

                 I have wondered as of late and often voiced my thoughts and questions on a subject that has poked and gnawed at me. I have wondered when we will finally be "real people."  To me this idea of "real people" means that we wont struggle with our finances, in fact we will have enough to meet our needs and save for rainy days because we seem to have quite a few of those in our forecast! It means that we will join the land of vacations and campers and children playing sports or twirling through ballet class as they have always wanted.  I have seen these "real people." In fact I know some of them and they seem to be some of the nicest kinds of people!  I had wondered if someday a switch would flip and we would suddenly be a part of this group.  I guess I had kind of hoped it would happen that way but past experience has shown me differently.  We were on our way to being "real people" once! We were hiking that path! We had the house, we had owned three of them in fact! Not all at once but we were actually grown up enough to be aware of how to buy and sell a house! we had the nice minivan that I cleaned out once a week and drove back and forth to the store to buy the items I had so carefully price matched. I only had two kids then as opposed to my crazy 5 now but things were working and I felt like an adult.  I knew we weren't quite where some others were but we were headed for "real."
Now, after an abundance of trials we have no house to call our own.  We live in a house but it is not one that is ours and as much as we want it to be it probably won't.  We are very blessed to pay a very small amount of rent but even then, most months it is hard to pay even that. I knew things were at their worst a year and a half ago. We were as far from being "real people" as we could ever be and so I prayed. I prayed so hard and got a clear answer.  I put myself through nail technician school and it has been the best thing that could have happened to this family right now.  It helps to fill those gaps when the paycheck can't stretch any further.  I thought then that we were closer to real but we are still as far as ever.  I just wonder at our age how in the world we are going to make it to real.  My dad was 10 years away from retirement at our age and we have very little retirement to look forward to.  I will do nails until the day I die or we won't eat! It is hard to see some of our friends hitting the milestones that we so badly want to hit but are so far from but we are undoubtedly happy for them! we celebrate for them and have nothing but happiness for their success.  It is well earned and well deserved.  We have had to start over earning our "real people" status and that is discouraging but we'll get there someday, wont we?

Hold Your Tongue!

I had an experience over the last few days that has left me rattled and discouraged. My husband and I took our kids on a vacation and we got to see a lot of family members we don't usually see. As we were swimming with the family one of our dearest family members told Matt and I that we need to lose weight. She also told us that when she saw us she "just felt sick"

I am not handling this well. I guess a little background on us will help you to see just why this was so heart wrenching to me.

At the age of 18 I got very sick with a cancer like disease called cushings disease. My poor 160 pound body ballooned up to 360 pounds within a year! It took the doctors so long to find the problem and diagnose it as something more than just obesity. The cause of it all was a tumor beneath my brain surrounding my pituitary gland. I had NO control over my body or my weight gain. At one point I starved myself, praying that the fat would melt away. After the removal of the tumor I lost over 100 pounds and then I got married and started having babies! My poor body has housed 5 living children and is tired. I have lost 46 pounds since the birth of my last child though and it has been hard work! I have been so proud that my skinny jeans are baggy and that I need a new pair! So for her to tell me that the sight of me made her sick was especially devastating. Matt takes these things better than I do. Matt has had a stroke and life for him is very hard. If only she could see past his physical limitations, she would see the amazingly sexy man I married. I guess we all say the wrong things at the wrong times but as a whole we need to just hold our tongues!!

Breaking ground

You come to a point in your life where you can continue on one path because it's easy and comfortable or you can change your path and find happiness through hard, hard trials. I am at such a point in my life. What's comfortable is no longer acceptable for me. What's comfortable has become hateful and hurtful. I'm changing my path which includes building some walls, thick walls. No letting people in so quickly. I would be perfectly happy to just be with my little family in our little house all of the time but I guess that can't happen. It will as much as possible though! I'm tired of friendships that are more work than anything. I'm tired of giving an inch and being dragged a mile. I just want love and comfort in my own home. It's going to take some growing and a lot of building but I do believe it's time to break ground.

Always something to be grateful for

Our little family sure has been tested and tried in the last 3 years. We lost our home in AZ after Matt had to have several Neuro surgeries. We almost lost Matt to a stroke, my daughter was hit by a car. 2 kids were hospitalized for severe infections and Nora broke her wrist last week! It sure doesn't seem to make much sense why we have been through so much but someday it will. In the meantime we have been so blessed. We lost our home in AZ and were able to move back home to be with family. We have a roof over our head due to extreme generosity from our dad. Matt had several Neuro surgeries that will keep him here with us longer. Matt survived his massive stroke and it taught us all that we are stronger than we ever thought we were. Nora was hit by a car and as a result we learned the incredible power of forgiveness and now have new friends that we absolutely love! Our 2 kids that were hospitalized for infections qualified for Medicaid so we were not hit with extreme medical bills. And in a all of this chaos our little Walker was born. For some reason he chose us! We have been extremely challenged in the last 3 years but more than that we have been EXTREMELY blessed.

Life These Days

Life is so different these days. Being a working mom is not something I ever wanted to do but I must say I have it so good. I love what I do and I get to do it from home so I see my children as much as ever. There are some days when that's not such a good thing! They can be very difficult during nail appointments sometimes but luckily I have the best clients in the world and they understand. I never imagined that my career in nails would take off the way it has! The Lord has blessed us in so many ways. I am so thankful to our roommates for their help with kiddos during nail appointments. 

We are headed for big changes here. Next week I have my tubes blocked so that we cannot have anymore children. As of now I am excited about that. I'm sure there will be a little bit of sadness, we're closing a chapter in our lives but a new and fun one is starting! I have to say I will miss having babies in the house . They are so amazing. Everyday I fall more and more in love with Walker. He's perfect. He's a lot of work but worth all the effort. I'm so grateful for all that we have. Life for us has been a struggle, things have not come easy but I'm happy. 

Overdue Update

It has been entirely too long since I have posted and several people have asked me if I still keep a blog so I HAVE to update more regularly! So much has happened in our little world! Nora had her third and final surgery for her broken femur. It broke in her accident. They took the rods out that were holding the bone in place while it healed and everything went very smoothly! She is doing great. She has a little bit of a limp but with time I'm sure that will be corrected. I had the opportunity to work in a salon here in Tooele and learned a lot from that experience. I only worked there for 3 1/2 months before I needed to quit. It was a hard decision but it wasn't working for our family and the OB said I needed rest. This pregnancy has been very challenging. My body is so run down after years of consecutive pregnancies, fibromyalgia, Cushing Disease, a brain tumor and several other ailments. I feel so much peace knowing that this will be our last child. I am anxious to have my tubes tied! I am currently sitting around waiting for this baby to arrive. I have a very hard time walking. There is something wrong with my pelvis, it's either cracked or dislocated. So I sit and wait and hope that my water will break. I'm 39 weeks this Thursday and hoping they can induce me. This last weeks appointment was very discouraging. I was still dialated to a three and the baby was very high. He was at a -2 station so the doctor could not schedule an induction. I just cried. My poor doctor was so sweet. He just hugged me while I cried. I will be so relieved when this baby comes. We are very blessed to be adding this little boy to our family and I am thankful for him everyday. 

The Refiners Fire

Things have been so hard lately. We have had good and bad things happen. We are thankful for the good and push through the bad but I am getting to weak to push anymore. I graduated from nail tech school which was a huge accomplishment for me. I almost quit so many times, especially after Nora was hit by a car. I can tell you one thing, the adversary was working so hard to stop what I was doing which confirmed to me that it was the right thing to be doing. I am so grateful that I am certified and will soon be a licensed and working nail tech. I have worked so hard to perfect this talent and it has paid off considerably. I have some clients already coming to the house and with much prayer I believe that the clients I need will come or that The Lord will find the opportunity I need to support my family. So graduating was definitely one of the good things that has happened. Nora's accident has taken so much out of us. The evening that it happened is one I will never forget. Ivan came running into the house yelling that Nora had been hit by a car and at first I knew that I must have misunderstood. When he said it a second time I tore out of the house. I could not get to her fast enough. The man that had hit her was holding her and although I was upset that he had moved her I would have done the same thing so I cannot fault him for that. It was a flurry of people and then police and an ambulance and then straight to life flight and to Primary Children's hospital for emergency surgery. She had a broken femur and a cracked jaw. I was feeling so many things. Helpless that I could not make it better. Guilty because I was not outside when it happened and exhausted because of seeing my baby in that much pain. The entire time we were at the hospital I was throwing up because of the growing baby inside of me which made things all that much better. We are moving through this though and Nora is improving and thank The Lord my nausea has nearly subsided :). 

We have been really blessed with this pregnancy. In the beginning it was scary because I am RH- and my body no longer responds to the rogham injections. This means my body tries to abort each pregnancy especially if the baby is not RH-. We had a couple of scares but we recently found out that our little man is RH- and going to be just fine! I am half way through my 22 week and feeling huge! We are naming our little one Walker and I am excited to end our family with another boy. Ivan has spent 7 years as the only boy and it is high time he had a brother. So things have been extremely hard but we just keep getting up. Through wage garnishments, law suits, strokes, accidents and autism we are becoming stronger people but it is damn near impossible walking through the refiners fire.