Love your neighbor

Loving your neighbor



I met my friend T when I was in 5th grade, and my family moved in across the street from her. Little did I know that meeting her would result in a 30 year friendship.

There aren't many memories during that stage in my life that I have without T in them. There are so many blessings spent together. Hours on board games, creating dance routines, walks to the store, trips to the mall, and failed kitchen experiences created some of the best memories of my life. At the center of it all were our families. Her parents often scooped me up as if I was one of their kids and took me along with them on trips and events. With two brothers, it was nice to have a break from all the testosterone in my house. I was always so thankful to them for including me.

As we grew older, we grew apart. T is two years older than me, so life happened. After college we reconnected and had some crazy times as roommates. We get together when we can. We stay in touch. The most important part of her friendship has been that she introduced me to the two greatest loves of my life.

One being the man who would become my husband.

The second being Jesus Christ.

My faith has been my comfort. It has been my driving force. It has been the shelter from the storm, my strength, and my hope. I can't imagine this life without it. And it would have never happened if my neighbors had never extended their friendship.

T's mom stepped into eternity last night after her battle against pancreatic cancer. I am grieving. I wish my friend wasn't 4 hours away. I am hating the disease cancer. I wish I was across the street from my friend.

To Bonnie, thank you for sweet peas in April, for loving me like a daughter, and for giving me my friend. Thank you for introducing my family to Jesus. I know you wanted to stay with us all a little longer, but I am sure when you walked through heaven's gates, you heard " Well done good and faithful servant"

Restoration

Let me be honest and real here, for the last few years, we've lived in hell. Sick husband, costly medical procedures, debt we had no control over, and a whole lot of worry. Most of my worries centered around whether or not I'd grow old with my husband, whether he'd walk our daughters down aisle, or if I'd spend the next years of my life as a care taker to an invalid. They consumed me minute by minute, and when I'd have time to sit down and think, the other worries would enter in. How are we ever going to pay off all these bills? What are we going to do if he can't ever go back to work? Finally, "Why us? Why now?" So, when my friend stood in front of me last fall and said "The Lord wants you know know that everything that has been taken is being restored," I figured she was just telling me what she thought I needed to hear. She knew, probably better than most, the hell we were walking through, and I was doubtful it was God she was hearing, but rather her own wishes for us. Friends are funny like that...they don't want their friends to suffer.

 Well, as I shared on my previous blog post, Kevin was miraculously healed. I still wake up and wonder, "how was that even possible?" but it happened. It happened!! The word restoration began to take new meaning for us.  No longer did I think it was just my friend trying to make me feel better, but I truly began to claim it as a promise from God.  

We are still dealing with the financial catastrophe. Things are funny, because we understand better than most that all the money in the world doesn't mean anything unless you have your health. Yes, our credit rating and money are important, but it isn't everything.  We celebrated our second chance at life, and we began chipping away at the bills. I've been given a chance at an internship program to complete my teaching credential. I'd had to put my credential on hold 12 years ago due to a different financial issue. It was a dream I'd let go of over the years. However, the program literally dropped in my lap in the form of a fellow substitute. I couldn't help but feel it was meant to be. So, I went to the informational meeting and turned in paperwork, and I was accepted contingent on getting a job as a teacher.  I'm proud to say this fall, I will be entering the teaching profession, signed contract and all. So, all that pesky debt I've been worrying about? Our income just increased by about 65%. Finally, we just found out today that we'd qualified for additional insurance through covered California in 2014. So, half of that debt? Getting resubmitted to our insurance company and quite probably now eliminated. We still have a long road to go, but we're getting there. I wake up with a renewed sense of purpose and hope. I no longer wake up terrified to see what the day brings, I wake up excited.

 Last week, Kevin was able to attend a third grade field trip to King's Canyon National Park as a chaperon to our twins girls. We hiked over 3 miles, rode in an old rickety school bus for over an hour to and from, and came hope and hit the pool to go swimming. He looked at me and said, "hey, remember when I couldn't even sit in a car for 30 minutes? Remember when I never thought I'd be able to do this again?" I do, I don't think I'll ever forget it. Our life is so full, and I will never take something as simple as chaperoning a field trip for granted again. Websters defines restoration as "the act of returning something that was stolen or taken." Our lives have been given back to us. I am so thankful for the people who have walked this road with us. The people who restored our hope when we felt none. I can only hope that those reading this are encouraged. I know I am.

Valleys, hilltops, and everything in between.

I'm trying to figure out how to fit five years into one blog post. If you read it all, bless you! In 2009, my husband noticed that vision in his left eye was suddenly gone. This, of course, was an alarming fact. We went to the doctor who referred us to an opthamologist who diagnosed him with Pigmentary Glaucoma. The diagnosis shocked us, but treatment of eye drops seemed manageable enough. With the diagnosis came the news that his optic nerve was damaged beyond repair, and he would never regain vision in his left eye. It was crappy news, but it wasn't the end of the world, because, after all, he did have the other one. This is when we experienced our first healing. We stayed at church to have someone pray for his eyes. Immediately, his "bad eye" began to twitch and tingle. When we went back to the doctor, he had regained vision in his bad eye. He is still legally blind in it, it wasn't a complete healing, but he regained peripheral vision which meant no more running into cabinets or doors, and he can now see "how many fingers" in front of his face where before he could see nothing. Over the course of this disease, we began to notice changes in Kevin. He no longer came home after a twelve hour shift and cleaned the garage or did massive loads of housework. Mostly, he came home exhausted and went straight to bed. He no longer was able to function on 5 hours of sleep. A quirk we chalked up to the new medications and the fact we were now comfortably in our 30's. But, back to the glaucoma...In 2011, his specialist discovered that the course of treatment of medicated eye drops was no longer working to control the disease. He was scheduled for a trabeculectomy in both eyes. The recovery time for this surgery is about 6 weeks, during which you are basically told to sit and try not to move your eye. They only do one eye at a time, so they did his good eye first. One might imagine the incredible stress and strain we were under to keep the kids calm, while I handled everything from childcare to shopping to driving him to appointments. As soon as his first eye was healed up, he went into surgery for his other eye. Even with insurance, this was financially devastating. The first surgery was in November, the second in February of the next year, so all deductibles, out of pocket, and coinsurance had to be met not once, but twice. Fortunately, our families were able to help us meet the cost. Following the surgeries and extensive recovery, life returned back to normal for awhile. Kevin no longer needed medication to control his glaucoma, so we saw a little pep in step return. He wasn't quite back to himself, but for awhile, he seemed almost normal. Then, things began to change--fast. He began experiencing tingling and numbness on his left side. He had chest pains, and he had periods where I thought he may have been having a stroke. With a strong family history of cardiovascular disease, we went to a cardiologist. Here, he had a complete work-up. Angiograms, ekg's, echocardiograms, and a super fun (not) ambulance trip to the ER after fainting. The cardiologist didn't discover anything that would account for his symptoms. He did discover hypertension and high cholesterol, which, of course, we began treating. He did, however, state that when it isn't the heart, these symptoms point to a neurological disorder. And so, off to the neurologist we went. Did I mention, he was off work during this time? His doctors felt he shouldn't be working with his erratic blood pressure. So, we were feeling the pressure of a ticking clock to try and figure this out as soon as possible. Weeks were creeping by with no answers. The neurologist felt immediately the answer was ms, especially when we told him about Kevin's now frequent "falling for no reason." MRI's, nerve conduction studies, and blood tests were ordered. Second opinions given, and the result was, "we have no idea what is wrong with you." In the meantime, Kevin is getting weaker, he is shuffling like an old man, and as an additional kick in the teeth, he has to go in and get a glaucoma implant in his eye. Not once, but twice (because the first one failed). If we thought the original surgery was a financial hardship, this year was more like a financial catastrophe. We end up in our Internists office with a referral to Stanford from the neurologist. The Internist says "I can tell you right now what your problem is, you have cervical and spinal stenosis. You need to see a neurosurgeon and get surgery." Relief flooded us with the knowledge we had an answer and a treatment to "fix" him. He had the decompression surgery, and he came through great. He was in a lot of pain, however, and we had our second healing. A man from a sister church did a guest preaching maybe a week after his surgery and said he had a word of knowledge for neck pain. Kevin was prayed for and all the pain was gone. No one could believe how quickly he recovered from a surgery that is normally given a year for "full recovery." So, all was good, right? Unfortunately, no. The numbness and weakness continued to progress. Remember how I mentioned Kevin used to work a 12 hour day and come home and clean? Now, our life was reduced to the fact he couldn't complete a shopping trip to Costco. Our referral to Stanford? Cancelled because the stenosis was the diagnosis! Except, it wasn't. So, more tests, a referral to UCSF's Fresno campus, thanks to our amazing neurosurgeon, and finally, finally a tentative diagnosis of Peripheral Neuropathy of unknown causes. Along with this, came the news that we were unable to rule out ALS as a diagnosis, and we would have to go to UCSF in San Francisco to finalize his diagnosis. The thing with Peripheral Neuropathy is that if you can find out what causes it, you can treat it. Treat the diabetes, you treat the Neuropathy. Treat the vitamin deficiency, you treat the Neuropathy. With an unknown cause, you do your best to treat the pain and and the uncomfortable feeling, but you can't treat the disease. As we are walking in the reality that my husband, at the age of 36 is permanently disabled, an invalid, and practically a shut-in, we were feeling pretty low. I was pretty angry. This was supposed to be the good part of life. Our kids were finally past the baby stage, and we were able to go places easily. Financially, we had a little extra now that I had gone back to work as a substitute teacher. Every penny, every minute, every thought had been sucked up by this illness. I couldn't be excited about my kids winning an award at school because I wasn't sure if Kevin would be able to make it through the ceremony. We couldn't plan a vacation because 1.) we couldn't afford it and 2.) he couldn't sit in the car long enough to get there. When the real lows would come, we would speak out all the good things God had done for us. "Remember the time your eye got healed? Remember how Tessa got healed?" We also began a 'when Kevin gets better" bucket list. It included things as simple as a drive to the beach, to a trip to the British open, to walking the girls down the aisle. We didn't know what out our future held, but we weren't really very optimistic these things were every going to take place. So, here's where our story has it's twist. My mom was attending a conference with Randy Clark, a faith-healer. She came home, and she told us, "you have to go." Kevin had been at his brother's wedding the day before, and he was basically bedridden. I was exhausted following a long week of work. I didn't want to go. Kevin didn't think he was "up" to going. She persisted, and we agreed to go. I had a bad attitude from the beginning. The first two worship songs didn't have their words on the screen, it was too cold inside the sanctuary, and I needed to be home packing for the reception for my brother-in-law's wedding. Randy began speaking, and it was a very nice teaching on the power of the testimony. He was very normal (much to my delight), and I could related to him. Suddenly he said, "I have a tingling, numb, burning, painful feeling that's starting in my left foot. If you have this symptom, stand up, I'm going to pray for you." Kevin refused to stand up because his tingling, numb, burning, painful feeling was in his whole body, not just his left foot. Randy said a quick 5 second type of prayer, and a woman up front began to cry. She said, "I've had neuropathy for years. I've been unable to feel anything in my feet. I've stepped on a nail, on glass, and I can't even feel it, but I can feel my feet." So Randy says, "Ok, if anyone has neuropathy, please stand up." Kevin stood up, and from the podium, Randy said a quick little prayer and said, "wave at me if you feel something" and kept on teaching. Kevin was waving both arms. He was walking and jumping and squatting and skipping. He was completely, totally, miraculously healed! We got home after 11 pm, and he stayed up all night cleaning. The next morning, we left for the reception which was 3 hours away. He was able to make the drive, stay at the reception for 7 hours, and he still felt great. It has been a few weeks since the healing, and Kevin still feels great. We've already crossed a few items off our bucket list, and we have been enjoying what feels like a second chance at life. If you've read this far, bless you! I write this in hope that the power of our testimony touches someone who finds healing through it. For more information on Randy Clark, please see http://globalawakening.com/home/speakers/randy-clark.

Cooking like it's take-out--Mexican part 3

Where I come from, there is this wonderful creation called simple "chile." For most of the world, I'm sure you're imagining beans, meat, chili powder. This is not what I'm referring to. Chili is a wonderful concoction that is part salsa part hot sauce. For YEARS, I've stockpiled this wonderful stuff from the little old lady who makes breakfast burritos at the gas station. I finally decided that tonight was the night I'll attempt to make it myself.

Here's how I did it.

4 dried pasilla chilies
4 dried new mexico chilies
2 chipotles in adobo
3 TB Cider vinegar
Juice from 2 limes (about 4 TB)
1/2 an onion
1/4 cilantro
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
4 cloves of garlic
boiling water.

Place dried chilies in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Cover with plastic wrap. Allow them to sit for about 10 minutes while they soften. After they're softened, remove the tops and seeds (you can do this before you soften them if you choose). Save the water cause you'll want to use a little bit of it. Place the ingredients with about 1/2 cup of the "chili water." Puree everything until it's the desired consistency. If you find you need more liquid, use a little more chili water. This definitely packs a kick, but it's wonderful. I used it with my Barbacoa burritos, and I'm saving the leftovers for Pozole on Monday. It's so good, I could eat it with a spoon!

Cooking like it's take-out--Mexican part 2

Cilantro Rice

I confess, Chipotle is not one of my favorite restaurants, but I find the idea of cilantro rice very appealing so I decided to make some to go with our delicious barbacoa.

Here's how you do it.

1 cup long grain rice
2 cups chicken stock (or 2 cups of water with 1 chicken boullion cube)
1/4 chopped cilantro
2TB oil or 2TB butter

In a skillet heat the oil and add the rice. Toast the rice to a lovely golden brown. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Cover skillet and turn heat down to simmer. Allow it to simmer away for 15-20 minutes. Fluff with a fork and add the cilantro. Enjoy.

Cooking like it's take-out--Mexican

I love eating out. It's one of my favorite things, but when you have five kiddos, it's a rare treat. So, my mission has been to learn how to make some of my favorite things at home. Today, I worked on Barbacoa. What's that you say? It's beef slow cooked in wonderful spices until it's falling apart. You shred it up and enjoy. It's a step up from just plain ole' "shredded beef." I added to it some cilantro rice inspired by Chipotle and some refried beans from scratch. I also made some homemade chili/hot sauce. Yes, my kitchen looks like a bomb went off, but here's how I did it.

Barbacoa

1 boneless chuck roast (you can use bone in or a tri-tip or a brisket). (it was 3-4 lbs)
1TB ground mexican oregono
1TB cumin
2TB salt
1TB pepper
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
2-4 TB of vegetable oil

2 chipotle in adobo peppers
Juice from 3 limes
1 cube of beef boullion
4 cups of water
1/3 cup cider vinegar
6 cloves of garlic
1 white onion, chopped
2 bay leaves

Combine all the dry spices to make a rub. Rub all over both sides of the meat. Heat oil in a large saucepan/dutch oven. Brown both sides of the meat. REmove meat. Add onions and garlic and sautee...add water and deglaze the pan (get all the brown bits up off the bottom. Brown=flavor. Add the boullion cube, vinegar, lime juice, bay leaves and meat back into the pan. Skim off any foam that might surface. Place a lid and simmer until meat is falling apart--about 4 hours. I'm betting that this would be awesome as a slow cooker meal as well.

Unparenting.

Unparenting. I have no idea if this idea really exists or if I just thought it up. It came to mind when I was hearing about "unschooling." A concept where children who are homeschooled more or less determine the course of study themselves. I thought, hmmm, I wonder about "unparenting?" Is there such a thing?

When I was a first time mom, I had a whole list of things I wanted my children to accomplish. I also had a plan of "how" I was going to accomplish my goals. Potty training would be when I wanted, they would eat on MY schedule, they'd sleep, they'd speak. They'd be perfectly well behaved. My discipline method was well thought out--I had a plan.

My plan worked. For awhile. I don't know many mothers of multiples who don't exist on some form of routine. Even the most unscheduled mom in the world seems to step up her game with twins. Maybe that's just my perception, but nonetheless, the twins had a routine that we lived by. Boyd came along, and he fit right in with the program.

Sure the routine was great, and it also sucked. Seven o'clock in the evening rolled around, and we had to be home to put the kids in bed. Truth be told, we really needed to be home by 5:30 for the "routine." What little social life we had, died a miserable death. After Tessa was born, the routine started to shift and morph. Actually, a lot of things became looser, more laid back. I couldn't expend the energy anymore...I let them start to run wild.

This isn't to say that we don't follow a routine. We get up around 8. We go to bed around 8, but we aren't locked in stone anymore. Dinner doesn't "have" to be at 5:30. There's ebb and flow in our lives. Is my day any more chaotic? Not really. In fact, I'm more relaxed because I don't feel the pressure of the "checklist" I keep in the back of my mind.

I have a new plan. It's called, "loosen up already." My 3 year old still isn't potty trained, but he takes off his diaper and goes pee. I think the rest of it will fall in line. Yeah, maybe I should make him sit on the potty every 30 minutes, and yeah, maybe I should have him strip naked until he stops having accidents, but I prefer to wait and see if he does it on his own. I think we can take another month or two to see if he does it.

Tess still doesn't sleep. Maybe I should let her cry it out and sleep train her, but I'm kind of waiting to see if she figures it out on her own. Maybe I'm shooting myself in the foot. Maybe I'm just letting my last baby be a baby a little while longer. Or, maybe I'm too sleep deprived to go through the effort of sleep training.

I think I've earned the right to unparent for a little bit. We'll see where it gets us.