Sierra's emergency

Sierra tried to scare the life out of me. She nearly succeeded! Here is the story of what happened to her.

Shortly after 3:00 (central time) yesterday my son came running inside telling me that Sierra was "laying on the grounding, kicking her legs weird and shaking all over". I ran out back, and she was curled up in the fetal position having a grand mal seizure. She had already vomited on herself and was thrashing around. The dog kept climbing on top of her. (Seeing how the dog acted later and then again when we brought Sierra home, I think she was trying to help her.) I picked her up and carried her to the front porch while my son ran inside to get the phone.

When I called 911 one of my neighbors who I only new by sight (who is the fire chief) heard the call go out and realized that the address was right around the corner. When they heard it was a 10 year old girl, they knew that it was Sierra (his wife is the school secretary) and they ran through our yards to get there and help me. I tried calling my MIL to come get DS but couldn't get through. Their line was busy so the cops went to get her and the neighbor (school secretary) stayed with my son until my mother-in-law could get here so I could go with Sierra in the ambulance. By this time she wasn't convulsing, but she was making this HORRIBLE gasping, choking type sound deep in the back of her throat. I was horrified, but I knew that when my brother had his seizure he could hear us, and knew what was going on, so I tried to stay as calm as possible. When we got to the hospital she had stopped making the noise, and she started trying to sit up but was obviously extremely disoriented. She was trying to speak, but all that came out was moaning.

After a while we could make out that she was saying "please help me mommy" and it broke my heart. I was holding her, and they were trying to get her vitals and such. She was so afraid, and she didn't know where she was or what was going on. We didn't realize it, but at that time she couldn't even see what was going on. She didn't regain her vision for 15 - 20 minutes. She told me that she couldn't see, and asked me "is this real?" and "I'm not dreaming?!?" I kept explaining things to her and reassuring her that I was there. Then she asked for DH and once I told her he would be there soon she asked for our minister. The she asked me the one thing that bothered me more than anything..... with tears streaming down her face she looked up and said, "Mommy, am I going to die?"   I promised her she wasn't and hoped I wasn't lying.

By the time the doctor got there she had completely regained her vision, speech and was able to stand and even take a few steps. He said that he was ordering a CT scan for the next morning and she would need an EEG in 6 weeks. Then we moved her to a room for the night, and a few hours later while they were checking her vitals again she said she felt dizzy. Then she told me her foot was tingling. Within seconds the whole left side of her body was seizing, but she stayed alert, we kept her calm, and it stayed on just the one side of her body and only last 45 seconds. We got very little sleep last night because we were both terrified that she would have another seizure.

This morning at around 9 am they came and got her at took her for her CT scan. Then we sat...and waited.....and waited....and waited. It was after 5 pm when they FINALLY came in and told us that the CT scan was normal, so no brain injuries that caused the seizure. They said they didn't want to medicate her unless they continue to happen, so they released her from the hospital with a long list of things that she cannot do without supervision. No bathing, no playing outside, no tv or video games.....basically nothing but sleeping unless she's being supervised. And ABSOLUTELY  NO tree climbing, no swimming without some sort of life preserver or within arms reach of someone, no bike riding. It's going to be a LONG summer.

She does have to have the EEG in six weeks, (which she'll have to get done while she is in Florida.....is someone going to be around to keep me sane for 8 weeks?!? I so DO NOT want tolet her go to Florida now!) and she will have to go see a pediatric neurologist in August if they don't have an opening in the next week. But as long as she doesn't have another one, she will be free and clear to do as she pleases in 6 weeks or so once they get the results from the follow up EEG. We have a family history of seizures that start between the ages of 10 -12 years old and then mysteriously end. Something to do with out of control hormones during puberty.Hopefully this is the same with Sierra and we don't have any more of these.

She is now feeling great, and other than being afraid that this will happen again, she is 100% feeling like the same girl she was BEFORE the seizure. We're camping in the living room together until she feels comfortable enough to go back to bed though. She leaves for Florida on the 17th (I'm flying down with them this year) and I have a feeling the couch will be my bed until then. If she feels more comfortable that way though, it's worth it.

I know this was really long, and thank you for reading this far. We would really appreciate it if everyone could pray that nothing else happens and that this turns out to just be a one time thing.
Thank you in advance for you prayers!

The business of being born!

So I heard about this documentary and I decided to check it out. I LOVED it and now I have decided that I absolutely must share this movie with EVERYONE I know, and convince them to share it with everyone they know who with then share it with .......yeah, you get the point.

Some of you know that I am a major supporter of home birth. This is a documentary supporting home birth and it is simply amazing. I've put the trailer for this documentary here, and I HIGHLY recommend that you find it and watch it. (If you have netflix, they have it available on DVD or you can watch it instantly!) 

I also want to ask you to share this entry with every woman you know, and to ask them to past this entry along. This subject is quickly becoming something I am very passionate about, and I want to get the word out there, so please help me!

I'm a bird!

Or at least I wish I was. Then I could have flown south for the winter. Why oh why did I decide to move to IOWA? Yesterday it was colder here in Iowa than it was at the SOUTH POLE! Actual temp was -13. With the wind chill, it was -22! This is crazy! Today we experienced a heat wave though. It was 4. That's the first time it's gotten above zero in over a week.

I dream of sand and surf and sun. It's the only thing that keeps me going. lol I am not accustomed to these kind of temps! I can only remember it dropping below zero twice in my entire life. It NEVER got like this back home. A nice little uncharted island in the tropics is sounding really nice right about now. Anyone have a boat? lol

So we have most of the house unpacked now. And thankfully the new/old place is MUCH warmer than the apartment was. And we got out of there just before this cold snap. I am so grateful for that. I would have been freezing in the apartment!

Anyway, this little bird is going to fly off to bed now and dream about beaches. And that tax relief check they were talking about on the news today. Hmmm, maybe I'll use that to pay for a trip to the beach! lol

First Day of School

It's the first day of school! The kid's have been gone for an hour and a half. Only five and a half more hours. I can do this..... I will survive. IT'S TOO QUIET!!! Somebody make some noise already! My baby started Kindergarten today. There were a lot of tears and a few were even from him. lol Actually he was holding himself together.... barely... but he was until the little girl at his table started crying. He turned and stared straight at the wall and said, "I'm not ready Mom. I can't do this." My heart broke as that single first tear slid down his cheek. He was trying not too. Even said "Big Boys aren't supposed to cry!"

I hugged him and we said a little prayer right there in the middle of the class room. I'm sure I probably offended someone. I whispered it so that he could hear but wasn't forcing it on anyone, but when I stood up after, I saw another mother roll her eyes. I thought about telling her I'd pray for her too, but instead, I just bit my lip, got my Little Man a tissue, and helped him dry his eyes. Then I told him we needed to get him back in his seat, I motioned to let the teacher know I was leaving. She grinned and gave me a little nod, and I turned and ran like the coward I am.

Yep. I had to sneek away from my baby. I couldn't face any more tears. I hid in the hallway sneeking peeks in the door for a few minutes and it looked like he was doing okay. There haven't been any calls to come get my hysterical child yet. lol *Knocks on wood.*

Well, I've got a lot to do around here today. It's a good thing too, because I have a feeling this is going to be one LONG day! Dang..... It's only been about 3 minutes since the last time I looked at the clock. Yep.... this is gonna be a long day.

My little princess has graduated to being called Miss Thing now. lol She is in the 4th grade now, and  as you can see, she thinks she is all that and a bag of chips. I think she was trying to go for a sexy pose here. I'm so not ready for that. Oh, and she wants to shave her legs! What age do you start shaving your legs? I don't remember. I think I was in the fifth or sixth grade. She does have pretty hairy legs though, and says some of the others in her class already shave. Oh my, my little ones are growing up too fast!

Enjoy the pictures. I'm gonna go clean. And cry some more. lol

P.S. I am going to indulge myself in one last comment here that doesn't sound like something a preacher's wife should say. Little Man wanted to be home schooled. I was going to do it. I let Matt convince me that he at least needed to try going for Kindergarten. I told him last night what would happen if Little Man cried today. When Matt comes home..... I owe him a nice hard kick in the balls! Maybe I should just aim for the knee though. After all, I do want to have a baby. Probably should be damaging his goods just yet. :P

Sending my Dad a balloon

I'll tell this story with pictures. I hope you don't mind. It's long, but I think it's worth the read. Enjoy!

I went to the store around 12:30 to buy the balloon for my Dad. They didn't have a red balloon except one that said Happy Birthday. The color wasn't that important really so I decided on a balloon that I liked, had it blown up and brought it home.

I had already written the letter to Dad. I quickly tied the envelope to the balloon, and took another picture.

I was glad that I gave myself extra time, because the envelope made the balloon too heavy. I had to fix that. Next time I'll just buy two balloons. This time, I just quickly removed the letter, and tied it to the string....discarding the envelope. Then I left, in search of the perfect spot to release the balloon from. I wanted it to be somewhere special. Somewhere I can go every time I want to release a balloon. I found the perfect spot. There is a bike trail that starts here on the edge of town about a block from my apartment. It winds and twists it's way across farmland. The trail itself is two miles long. If you drive down the road to the other end it's only one mile away though. So that's what I did. I drove to the other end, and then walked 1/4 of a mile up the trail. There are these little memorial benches along the bike path, and there happens to be one beside this pond.

At the edge of the pond the corn is growing tall! There were birds everywhere, and I even saw a bunny hop across the trail in front of me. As I sat down on the bench, I found myself talking to my Dad aloud, as if he were right there. I told him how much I loved him, and that I wish he was there with me. That is when the most amazing thing happened. This hawk swooped down out of nowhere and landed less than 10 feet away on the fence post! I quickly snapped a picture, and then stood and walked towards him. Unfortunately, my camera battery died then. It was amazing.

This hawk let me get so close that I could almost touch him! Then he screeched at me, so I decided not to push it. I sat down on the path and stared at him. I even spoke aloud to him. For five minutes that hawk sat there beside me, and from the moment he landed I felt such a wave of comfort wash over me. At 12:55 I looked at him and said "You aren't going to pop my balloon when I let it go are you?" He tilted his head to the side, screeched at me again, and then flew off. I can't even put into words how much comfort that silly little creature brought me. It's almost as if my Dad sent him to be with me.

At 12:56 (1:56 eastern) I began to cry again as I released the balloon. I watched it float higher and higher as I said "I love you Daddy!" over and over again. I sat and watched my balloon as it became a dot, and then a speck, and then completely disappeared. I glanced at the clock and realized it took 6 minutes for the balloon to disappear from view. In another parallel, I now know from reading the nurses notes from the day Dad passed, that she noticed the first signs that he was passing at 1:50pm. Dad drew his last breath at 1:56 pm. Six minutes. It just made sense to me. It seemed right that the balloon take that long to leave my sight.

Watching that balloon was completely gut wrenching. I sat and sobbed most of the six minutes. I still had to sit for several minutes afterwards before I could see enough to drive home. On my walk back to the car, I noticed a butterfly that was flying along side the path. It followed me all the way to the parking lot before flying away out through the fields. Another sign? maybe. Or maybe experiences like we have all had.....losing someone we love so much makes us slow down just a little bit and see the things we would normally overlook. I feel much better now that I released the balloon. I will do it again in October for my Dad's birthday. It's going to be a tradition now. I'll send my Dad balloons on his birthday, the anniversary of his death, and my birthday and the kids' birthdays. It really was a 'healing' experience.

Six Months

I marked my mood as sad, but that doesn't even begin to explain how I am feeling at this moment. SIX MONTHS!!! Those two words keep screaming in my head, making it impossible to think straight, impossible to breathe, impossible to function basically. I'm walking around in a daze. I can't focus my energy on anything, but I can't sit still either. It's midnight, and Matt has to be up at 4:00 so anything I do decide to try to focus on needs to be as quiet as possible. 

Six months ago I was spending my last night talking to my Dad. Six months ago I was watching a western, and sharing one last cigarette with my Dad. Neither of us knew at the time that it would be the last. If we had, we probably would have savored the moment just a little more.

I can't help but run every single moment of those last 24 hours through my head over and over again. I keep asking myself if I should have said "I love you" one more time. Is there anything I should have done differently. I come to the conclusion that I did everything I could. I made him as comfortable as possible. He knew how much I loved him. I was telling him constantly. There are a lot of questions I wish I had answers too, and things I wish I had said, but they are things that would have upset Dad during his last moments, so in the end, I am glad that I didn't discuss them. Glad for his sake. For me...... these are things that will haunt me now. Unanswered questions that I desperately want answers to, but at the same time, I am terrified of the answers.

I should be in bed. I know I should be. I have to drive Matt to work at 4:00 but there is no way I can sleep. I can't stop the tears long enough to sleep. I know it isn't helping, but I keep listening to songs from the funeral and other songs that remind me of Dad. Songs like:

When I get where I'm Going ~ Brad Paisley
If something should happen ~ Daryl Worley
Live Like You Were Dyin' ~ Tim McGraw
Go Rest High On That Mountain ~ Vince Gill
My Little Girl ~ Tim McGraw
I Loved Her First ~ Heartland (We were supposed to dance to this song at my wedding. I never dreamed that he wouldn'tbe there.)

I don't know how I'm ever supposed to get back to normal. I try. God I try so hard! It might work for a day or two....a week at the most. There isn't a single day that something doesn't happen that makes me think of Dad. Or want to call him, or hug him. I just want to hear his voice again. I want to tell him that I love him. I just want one more hug. One more minute. One more hour. One more day. Just one more........

Thinking about facing the rest of my life without ever being able to ask his advice or tell him about my day or talk to him about anything makes me physically ill. It's been six months, and yet I still can't believe that he is gone. How am I supposed to keep going? How do I get past losing the one person that would always love me unconditionally?

I know this song at the bottom is more about a little kid, but there are several parallels that I can't help but notice. The ages they mention in that song are exactly 20 years from where I am now. She was 7....I'm 27. She talks about him missing her birthday...he missed mine. She talks about wishing he could be there for her wedding, and I wanted the same. My Dad did get to meet Matt. Thank God because Ican't imagine being with someone my Dad never got to meet. I wish they had been able to get to know each other more though. They had so much in common. It amazes me sometimes. This song has really touched me, so around noon I am going to go to the store and buy a red balloon. I'm going to write a note to my Dad and tie it to the balloon. At 1:56 pm (eastern) I am going to release the balloon and let it take my note to my Dad. That  is exactly when my Dad passed, and it just seems 'right' to release the balloon then. I will do this every January 22nd as well. Always a 1:56 pm (eastern). It just makes me feel like maybe somehow he might know what I am trying to say if I send it to heaven on a balloon.

Little Red Balloon ~ Kristinia Cornell

Another Scrapbook Page

Hey everyone. I made another scrapbook page today. And I found a bunch of great resources online to help me come up with new ideas for pages. I am so excited. I can't wait to get new pictures printed, and take other pictures so that I can get alot more pages made!

Here's the latest.



I still need to add a title on the bottom of the page in the light green square. I'm just trying to decide what I want it to say. Well, I'm off to work on another page.  Have a good night everyone.

EDITED: To add the page I worked on tonight. I still need to add some journaling to it, but here it is!



***Get me your addresses for the post card exchange! I'll be getting those in the mail in the next few days!***

Scrapbooking

I have recently started scrap booking. I am very much a beginner and it shows. I thought I would share just a few of my pages with you though. You will notice some white-out sections. This is were there was a last name or other identifying info that I cut out. Other than that, you'll see them exactly as they are in my scrap book.

This one is a memorial page to my dad. Hopefully my mom will be sending me some pictures soon for the page I want to make to go beside this one.



Matt and the little ones. I just adore black and white photos.


A few pages from our wedding album.






A day at the lake. A cold day.....in early May. I think they are nuts! And no....Momma didn't get in the water that day! I think I made an entry about this with other pics of the lake including some geese. I'll have to look back and see.


Sierra's 9th birthday.


I have other pages that I will share another time. These are just a few of my favorites. Also some of my better pages. I am getting better if I must say so myself. lol You should have seen some of my earliest pages!

Last week's storms

I've been meaning to post these for a week now, and somehow I've never gotten around to it. Sorry for the bad pictures....they were taken around 6am, before the sun was up, and with the conditions.....it just wasn't safe to try and get another angle. This is the street in front of my apartment. At least it was a street. The water rose quickly.

(Not my car......this one belongs to the guy downstairs.)

(He won't be happy in the morning!)

Yes, the car is on the street. Yes, the rain is STILL pouring down at that point. YES, the car is going under quickly! The car did get water inside of it. There was mud in the floor of it. The water stopped rising just before it hit the seats. The ironic thing........ THAT'S MY PARKING SPOT! Betcha he doesn't take my spot again. lol Betcha I don't complain about him being in my spot again either! My car was on slightly higher ground, and the water never did make it inside of mine. It was touching the bottom of the car though. It stopped about 6 inches from the door to the apartment downstairs. That apartment sets below the sidewalk. It almost sucked to be them, big time!

That was last Friday. On Saturday, the police knocked on my door and said that the rain was coming again, and that they needed everyone to move their vehicles to higher ground. NOT A PROBLEM! So we decided to run to the gas station and get some sodas before the storm hit. Not a great idea. We didn't go fast enough. The storm hit while we were gone. We ended up having to walk through a huge "river" in the middle of the road to get back to the apartment. The worst part of the evening though......MY CAR GOT STRUCK BY LIGHTNING!!!!! WHILE WE WERE IN IT!!!!

Actually, it hit a gas station that we were driving past......which was sitting in floodwater.....which was on the road.....and I was driving through. So the car didn't get a direct hit. Just kinda... sideswiped if you will. lol We were fine. The car will be fine. We took it to the shop today. 1400.00 in repairs. I have the extend warranty *jumps up and down clapping* so it is only going to cost me.......Are you ready?.........$130.00! WHOOO HOO! And while they are working on it, I get to cruise around in a 2007 Ford Taurus. Not bad....not bad at all! Oh, did I mention that the rental isn't costing me a dime either. Again......WHOO HOO! YAY FOR WARRANTIES!

It is a nice car and all, but actually I can't wait to get mine back. Yes, this one is newer, but mine is FASTER! Mine also has a better stereo, and just looks much cooler! I drive a sporty little maroon 2 door Dodge Stratus. This one is (to quote my sister) a four door grocery getter! lol  Not that I have anything against it. It's just that my sporty little car has grown on me, and I want it back. The taurus doesn't seem to have enough power to get out of it's own way. My car.....well, I happen to know for a fact, that there is very few cars in the area that can keep up with mine. I like knowing that if I need the speed, I have it available. lol Matt says I have a lead foot, and need to learn to slow down. I have yet to get a single speeding ticket though. (I just act like I might cry and the let me go with a verbal warning.....even when the fact is, they should not have!)

****NOTE----while I do drive fast, I am a SAFE driver. I have only ever been in one accident while I was behind the wheel. That was on ice two months after I got my license, and there had been a car in my lane. The other driver was declared at fault.

I'll try to remember and snap a couple of pictures of the rental while it's daylight, and then some good ones of mine when we get it back next week so that you can see the difference.