The incredible shrinking house

Funny how a home feels so much smaller when you are snowed in. Victoria was sick earlier this week and I decided it was my turn yesterday. There is a flu bug crawling around our house. If I find him be sure that I am going to smack him with a fly swatter. Yesterday I felt horrible! I didn't leave the couch much. James left around noon and I barely made it through the rest of my day. Victoria made herself very helpful taking care of mommy. For as nuts as she makes me on some days, when I am sick she really becomes a helper. We sat on the couch last night watching our favorite show America's funniest pets and people. She made sure I stayed covered up with my blanket and had plenty to drink. She would come over to my side of the couch and brush my hair out of my face and kiss my forehead. She can be such a sweetheart!

Today I am feeling better but not exactly "with it". Victoria and I watched Toy Story 2 on the couch today and cuddled for a bit before I fixed my famous pancakes. The snow didn't hit quite as hard as they talked about last night but the ice that is setting in looks wicked. Our lil Charlie Brown Christmas tree outside in the front yard looks quite bogged down with ice. My car is completely encased in it. Being "stuck" makes our home feel half the size as it is. I need to get out!

We didn't make it out of the house much this weekend. James spent most of his time home with his dad. Papaw is still in the hospital. The doc's have given him about 2 years if he responds to chemo and about 6 months if he doesn't. They also told Vicki that infection could take him immediately. They are doing more tests on his kidneys. They have told us that there is nothing that they want to go into detail about with his kidneys. "Don't worry about it" they say. If they are not going to give us all of the info then why even bother telling us what else could be going wrong. He still hasn't passed anything into his colonoscopy bag and they are concerned about that. They have him on 4 bags of meds in his IV to help him digest food but they don't seem to be working. His stomach is beginning to swell again. They are getting ready to send him to a rehabilitation center in New Albany because he needs 24/7 supervision and their insurance will only take care of in home health for 5 days. Gotta love insurance! Hopefully he can regain some strength in rehab to be able to handle some chemo. We have heard horror stories about chemo and are not looking forward to what is ahead of us. We just keep praying for a miracle.

Victoria's version of the Bible

This week I bought a "Read together Bible" for Victoria and I. I thought it would be a good addition to our prayers before bedtime. The first night we read of the story of Adam and Eve and splurged and read about Noah too.

This morning I asked Victoria about what we learned about last night. She talked about Adam and "Evening" and how God made Adam out of dust and Evening out of Adam's "ribbon". She also let me in on the fact that a snake tricked Evening and now he is on his belly. Noah built a "bark" because Jesus was going to bring water called a "float". Then God put the rainbow outside to say "Not do that anymore!" It is quite interesting to hear her tell it. I can't wait to hear about Jonah! That should be a good one.

Sick Island

My mother has been teased relentlessly about her obsession with alcohol when we got sick as kids. We were quarantined to our rooms and banned from touching any surface that could be "contaminated" with germs. We told her repeatedly that we were going to make her a holster for her alcohol bottle so that she is ready at a moments notice. She would be ready when someone would sneeze she could hose them down to the point of dripping so that nobody else would get sick. I sit here typing this as I am sitting at my desk with my alcohol bottle by my side. I am completely turning into my mother. I have given it a lil twist though. "Sick Island". Her room has been deemed Sick Island since yesterday. She is able to watch as many movies as she wants and dance in her Cinderella dress and play to her hearts content. She just has to stay on vacation on the island. I get to keep the rest of the house relatively germ free and she is able to play and have a party in her "island". Today she chose an ensemble of her Cinderella dress, white tights, Orange fuzzy hat, Little Mermaid crown, sunglasses and her new $4 rain boots that Mommy found on an end cap at Target. The boots zip up and she has trouble remembering that the zippers go on the inside of her legs. She came out to show me how beautiful she looked when she finished getting dressed. I told her she looked "Fabulous!" as I tried to hold back laughter when I noticed that her boots were on the wrong feet. After drawing her attention to the fact that to toes of her lovely boots were pointing outward instead of in. She replied with "That is probably why my feet hurt."..... Makes sense to me!

Becoming an "official" mom

Today I was "officially" included into the group of motherhood. I was puked on. Victoria is "not feeling so well" as she says. It started last night with Grandma's meatloaf. She was a lil pokey eating and I didn't think anything of it. She quickly got up and ran to Grandma's bathroom. She started laughing when I told her "You really DIDN"T like Grandma's meatloaf didn't you?" She kinda giggled and told me "yes". So now I am home with a sick kid and an aching back. Storms blew through last night and we slept on Grandma's concrete basement floor. (My body feels like I am 90 today) We made it through the storm unharmed and our house is still standing. Our neighbors underpinning is off of his trailer down the whole side by our house. I get it got pretty wicked last night. Glad we were safe. (Thanks Grandma)

Talked to James this morning. The doc came to see his dad this morning and informed him that his lymph nodes are about 40% infected with Cancer. It is in stage 3-4. They are wanting to wait for about 3weeks to a month to start Chemo for him to get his strength up for it. Things are not good. There has been no time frame discussed and we are just waiting to see. James is on his way home now and he is going to go and see his dad in the morning. Papaw says he isn't in pain other than his surgery site and we are happy for that.

The storm before the storm

Today I was ready to head to my mom's house to take shelter from the severe storm that is heading our way. Little did I know that storm of another kind was moving in. I called Bridgepointe today to make an appointment for Victoria for an evaluation for counseling and was turned down. They told me that they do not do family counseling and that they would only offer help to Anthony. I ended up cancelling the appointment and became disgusted with another road block in getting help for this poor child.

After letting the rejection from Bridgepoint set in I received a call from Vicki, James mom. She was very upset and crying and called to let me know that they found Cancer in Papaw's colon and that it has already spread to his lymph nodes. We are not yet sure what stage it is in and the are starting chemo very soon. I was asked to tell James this horrible news. I called my dad unable to find the words to tell my husband that his dad is facing a diagnosis of Cancer that has already spread. While on the phone James was beeping in calling my dad. Dad decided to deliver the news to him for me. He of course is not doing well and away from home. I want nothing more than to be able to hug him and comfort him. I am not sure how much more we can handle here as far as stress factors. Life is dealing us some incredible miracles and yet sending some real trials too. This too shall pass and God will take care of us he always has and always will. Please pray for us.

Choices choices

Well today we packed up the troops and headed to Pekin to show the girls the houses that we have been looking at. The girls loved the Cabin and Victoria loved the smaller house with the huge yard. She is already talking about a swing set in the yard. Our agent that we have been working with showed us another house in Salem that is 5 bedrooms that is also getting foreclosed on. They are asking 115.000. It is a HGTV flip this house dream. Brick outside with an attached two car garage. The carpet would have to be replaced completely throughout the house and paint throughout too. The yard again is waterlogged and it needs some landscaping BAD! The upstairs is adorable with two nice sized bedrooms with a bonus room that would make a wonderful play room for kids. One is already painted an obnoxious purple color for Victoria. My biggest complaint are the ceilings. They are textured in two different patterns. They are bordered in a typical texture pattern about a foot wide and then there is an inch and a half strip of paint in the color of the room then on the inside a fan pattern...........That is horrible! The rooms are blue, burgundy, biege, purple, pink, and a dark blue. All of them have a paint strip in the ceiling in the color of the room . We will just say it was an "interesting" choice. We have talked it over and decided if we choose that house that we could do a wood trim in the ceiling over the paint strip to make it look a lil less odd. The rooms upstairs have the semi catherdral ceilings and built in shelves that are really neat! I could be really excited about this house too but it would need some work immediately before we would be able to move in.

AHHHHH choices. What do we do. We love the cabin more and more. Then again this new house presented to us would be a REALLY attractive home once it had some work. We could always get a modular and a piece of land. Or we could just stay here in our humble trailer and ROT! We don't want to make a jump decision before we do some research on what is available but the more and more that we look the more and more we are confused. I am needing God to just post a big neon arrow above the house that we are suppose to move on. We could just drive around and look for the arrow that says RIGHT HERE PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Prayer needed for Papaw Craig

James was barely making it home this weekend when he received a call from his mom to tell him that his dad is heading to the hospital. He was complaining of stomach pains and running a fever. James headed straight to the hospital at midnight. At 4am James finally called with an update that they were taking him back into surgery to find out what the problem is. He said that they were looking for the worst. They did an MRI and is showed nothing so the were possible thinking Cancer. They were apprehensive to put him under because his blood pressure was bottoming out and they were worried about the risk of putting him under. When they opened him up they found that his colon had burst inside of him. They had to completely remove his colon. He is recuperating and heavily sedated. He is still in a lot of pain and trying to get some rest. Of course the risk of infection is very high so we are needing some prayers sent up to help heal Papaw Craig. I will keep everyone posted.

On a good note we dedicated the babies at church tonight. My sister and niece even came to see. They were a hit and I have to admit that I loved hearing all of the "ooooooooooohhhhhhhhs" when we stood in front of the camera for the church to see our beautiful babies.