Health Problems and Homeschooling

This has been quite a year. In Oct. I experienced some pretty serious health problems and have not been as active on Facebook since then. I'm finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and feeling a little bit better. I plan on sharing a bit of my journey when the time is right.

How many of you have had health problems while homeschooling? It's HARD! It's hard to find the motivation to keep going each day when you don't feel good or got no sleep and it's hard to feel positive. It's hard to know what you can say to your kids and what you shouldn't say so not to scare them. I've learned a ton since Oct. and I'm still learning and through it all I'm learning to be grateful. I love my family and I'm savoring every minute I have with my kiddos.

I just wanted to encourage you because I know we all have things we are working on or trials we might be going through...especially right now. The decision you've made to homeschool your kids is the best decision you could ever make in the life of your family. No matter how hard life gets homeschooling brings your family together and connects you to one another.

If you are going through a challenging time like me, I wanted to share a tip...I highly recommend journaling and get off the internet. Us homeschooling moms love to research, but sometimes it can actually harm the healing process. I've tried to stop researching "Dr. Google" for answers and instead I've been going to my faithful journal and just start writing my thoughts. It has helped bring peace in this very uncertain time. I may not have all the answers, but I feel a lot more calm and peaceful. Sometimes the internet is not the best place to go for answers.

If any of you need to talk or need some encouragement, please don't hesitate to message me.

Above Rubies Retreat 2011

I was so blessed to be able to attend the Above Rubies Retreat a week ago in Zephyr Cove, Lake Tahoe! My wonderful hubby more than encouraged me to go and I also was doubly blessed to go with my new very dear friend, Laura! Laura is from Santa Cruz originally and we never met when we were both living there. However, we both have 7 children and embrace the Lord's blessings with open arms. We have all the same friends from Santa Cruz, but never crossed paths in the 10+ years we lived their at the same time! Anyway, we had such a great time together listening to Nancy's message on motherhood and our roles as godly wives.


Nancy spoke about "The Overflowing Land" - in other words our homes are to be overflowing. 


First, God made our homes to be "A Good Land" (Numbers 14:7) that is to be overflowing with hospitality to others and healthy foods and meals. 


Second, our homes are to be "A Delightful Land" (Psalm 106:24-25) that brings God glory. Nancy says "Motherhood is the glory of the nation!" But, many mothers do not have that revelation of motherhood being glorious. Instead they despise their land only wanting their children to grow up quick or even to go to work to escape "their land" instead of delighting in it each new day. They are like the Israelites, despising their land that God brought them in to. 


Third, our homes are "A large Land" (Exodus 3:8). Do you realize that when couples say no to just one child because they feel they are too tired, it would be inconvenient, too expensive, or whatever other excuse they have that is self driven, they are actually effecting thousands, even millions of people for God? One child can be a future dynasty for God! I couldn't imagine if we had said no after having just three children, we wouldn't have Jonathan, Sophie, Joshua, or Eliana! 


Satan wants to minimize Israel and in the same way he wants to minimize godly families that can be Nation Changers - World Changers! He wants to minimize our land and when godly Christians use excuses to stop God's blessings upon their lives they are giving in to Satan and selfishness. There are so many verses in the Bible about children being a blessing and a gift from God. God commanded Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and multiply" and that command hasn't gone away. God's desire is to have more children in Heaven with Him! How can that be if Christians continue to say no to God's blessings for children? How can anyone refuse God and especially take part in "birth control" contraceptives when they are so clearly not from Him? Many contraceptives are actually abortificants and many babies have died through naive use of the Pill and other types of contraceptives and even Christians that are pro-Life have no idea that this happens! It breaks my heart! Read about it here.


Fourth, our land is to be "A Flowing Land." Twenty times in the Bible it talks about the land being flowing with milk and honey. Are you "flowing" in your land or are you doing your motherhood or fatherhood role "out of duty?" Are you being creative and joyful with your children each day? Are you abounding in the work of the Lord? Are you reaching out to the needy, loving your children, and loving your husband or wife? We have to constantly remind ourselves to ABOUND in order to have our land be flowing with God's love and fruitfulness! 


We must strive to have a land flowing with milk. What does it mean to flow with milk? Milk in the Bible represents nourishing and nurturing. Are you nourishing and nurturing your children? Do you plan and prepare nourishing meals for your family? Do you take the time to think about what God would want you to feed your family? Or do you just quickly grab a meal full of preservatives and junk for their bodies because you are too busy running around from here to there and not being purposeful in your day? 


I have to admit, I am guilty of this. I need to spend more time planning and preparing nourishing meals and am making a commitment to ask God to help me with this. It takes self-discipline to plan and also say "no" to things that have become a habit in your diet and that are unhealthy. God will bless your efforts! 


God wants us to nourish and nurture our families. Are you nurturing your family? Are you comforting your children and taking the time to just be quiet and let them talk? Or are you running around commanding them and telling them what to do and what not to do all day because of your business? Stop and smell the roses with them or watch a sunset. Take time to just sit and be still and enjoy them. Read to them, play games with them, or relax with them. There is always time to do one more thing or go one more place, but we must stop and just "be" with our family to bond and make memories. Along this same subject of nurturing is lovingly managing our homes. There is something within us that wants to manage our homes each day. Do you manage well or in a "crazy state?" Are you calm? Do you bring peace and harmony to your daily activities? Or do you cause chaos with your words and attitude? The mother creates the atmosphere in her home. Do you use "sweet words" in your home management? We must manage the home with both gentleness and efficiency and seek the Lord to find out what that looks like for our family. 


Fifth, our land is a "Dependent Land." Deuteronomy 11 talks about how Israel had to completely depend on God for water and God supplied it for them. In the same way, we need to completely depend on God in our homes. We need to go to God for wisdom, help, and understanding and completely depend on him for taking care of our children, home, and husband EVERY day. When we choose not to pray for God's help and wisdom, it is only showing that we think we can accomplish what WE want by ourself and that we don't need God. We need to have a continual conversation going on with God throughout each day asking for help and wisdom in every decision. 


Sixth, our land is a "Fruitful Land." When the Israelites were captive in Babylon God told them what to do...we can follow that same commands today. This is what God said: 
1. Build houses and dwell in them.
2. Plant gardens and eat.
3. Take wives and have children. 
4. Have grandchildren.
5. Increase (do not be diminished)
6. Seek peace, pray for the city 
7. Don't be deceived! 


Isn't it so simple? God's ways are so simple and yet we still choose not to follow them. We cannot pick and choose what verses or commands from the Bible we want to choose and not follow all of them based on what we think or want. For example, we cannot say well, I will follow #1 because I do want a house and #2 because I agree it's good to have a garden and eat organic. And, #3, yes I'll get married, but I'm not ready to have children yet, so I'll wait on that. #4, grandchildren, sure that will come later. But, #5, no I don't want to increase yet, that must not apply to my situation today since God wanted the Israelites to increase back then, but surely that doesn't apply today...and so on. It is a sin to pick and choose only part of what God wants. We are not being humble if we decide what God wants by only following some of his Word an not all! We need to follow the Word 100% even if it is scary. But, it is only scary if we aren't truly putting our complete faith in Him. He IS in control! 


Finally, our land is a "Life Giving Land." God is a God of LIFE. We have to be pro-life in everything we do. We must strive to eat life-giving foods, not dead junky foods, and feed ourselves and our families well. We must strive to have life-giving attitudes towards our children and family and speak life giving words into them by blessing them and telling them what a blessing they are to our family and to the world! We must strive to think life-giving thoughts, not destructive thoughts that will only break and tear down ourselves and our families, taking every thought captive. And, finally we should be open to Life from God. He is the life giver and He has the power to open and close the woman's womb. He is in control of that and we should never pretend that we should be in control of life! 

Here's Nancy, Eliana, and I on our last day at the retreat! 

What a crazy week!

My poor little adventurous three year old guy has had quite a week! 


Sunday morning I got him dressed and noticed a rash. Upon further investigation I determined it looked like Lyme Disease! With all of the ticks we've been finding, I guess it was just a matter of time. After going to the doctor yesterday, she confirmed that it is indeed Lyme Disease! So, he is now on 4 weeks of Amoxicillin! Whew! At least there is an easy solution!


Now today...I'm in the office talking to Wes and hear "BOOM!" then crying. It isn't uncommon to hear these sounds in our house throughout the day, but Momma's know the difference in cries in their children and I knew I better go and investigate this one. I found my little guy on the floor holding his foot and whimpering. This is unusual for him. He has a very high pain tolerance and never stays in one position for long. I asked him what happened and he said he jumped from the railing like his big brother did. What?! The railing is about 10 feet from the ground in our multi-level house. He landed about 10 feet from the railing in the middle of the room, which means he had about 20 feet of air time! Wow! No wonder his foot was hurting! After about an hour it had swollen to about twice the usual size and he would not walk on it at all. He was scooting around on his behind everywhere. I felt so bad for him. 


We got into the Doctor and after x-rays, determined that he has a subluxation on the third and fourth metatarsals which is indicative of a Salter 1 fracture - ha! How do you like my medical jargon? Basically he probably broke his third and fourth longer bones in his foot. But, because he's so little and his foot is so swollen it's hard to be sure. So...we have to wait until the swelling goes down a little more (Friday?) and re-x-ray. For now, we are immobilizing it in an ace bandage and icing it. He's a little trooper though. He is so sweet and I'm just loving my one-on-one time I've had with him the last couple of days. He just makes me laugh with his inquisitiveness and sense of humor. "What's this, what's that?" all the time. But, I have a feeling this is just the beginning of life adventures with this little guy. We are in trouble. 

Weight Loss update

Okay, so I did no exercise this week because I'm still recovering from my surgery, BUT...I lost 4.1 pounds! I went to my Weight Watchers meeting today and I was free because I made it at my goal for my Lifetime Membership! I was so stoked. I haven't been at goal since I got pregnant with Eliana. Anyhow, I still want to make it to my ultimate goal of 125. So, if I'm feeling good this week I will add exercise three times this week for 30 minutes. Then I will add a day each week after that to get to the five days a week goal and Saturday fun day exercising with hikes, bike riding, etc. I added this cute ticker from Ticker Factory - they have fun tickers to countdown just about anything. Very fun! My hubby says he wants to lose with me. He recently lost 50 pounds! But has regained about 8. He says he wants to lose about 15-20 pounds, so we will do it together. I can't wait to see the results. Maybe we will treat ourselves with a trip to Hawaii (in my dreams)!

Losing baby weight

Welp, it's time to admit that I need to lose my baby weight. Eliana is officially 6 1/2 months old and I'm not losing any more of the weight I gained naturally, so it's time to get back to counting points and going to my Weight Watchers meetings. Today I am 150.5 lbs. and I have about 25 pounds to lose. Eliana has started taking rice cereal occasionally so I have 30 points I can eat per day. I downloaded a cool app for my iPhone where I can keep track of points, exercise, and more, so I'm all set. I'll keep track on here occasionally with how I'm doing and any tips I come across from meetings, etc. I'm going to start with adding exercise three times a week and work up to five times a week with a hike on the weekend by three weeks from now.

God is so good

Wow, what a week. I had my surgery on my ear on Monday and it has already been almost a week. Everything went very well and the doctor got all of the tumor. But, I bled more than they thought I would during surgery so it took longer (three and a half hours) and so it was harder for me to wake up from the anesthesia. I got home in a daze and a lot of pain. But, the pain medication did it's job and now today I just have to take ibuprofin for the pain.

We are so blessed to have Wes work for such a great company like Cisco. They gave him the whole week off and he was able to step in and take care of the kids and house like a pro. He has been such a blessing to me and the children. He is such a wonderful husband and Daddy and I appreciate him so much! He also took them on a field trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and out hiking and geo-caching today. They love their "Daddy Days."

My parents were so generous as well to watch the kids on the day of the surgery and Eliana did fine without me. She ate her rice cereal and was happy to nurse soon after I got home. We were also so blessed by the amount of people that prayed for me and for the support from friends with meals after as well. The Lord truly gave me such a peace going into the surgery. I thought I would be scared and worried, but I wasn't at all. I knew that it was all in the Lord's hands and that He wants His best for me. I know that the prayers helped with how I felt too. I knew that everything would be alright and that the Lord would take care of everything. I don't think I can say that I'm thankful for the experience, but I am thankful for one more experience to have where I was able to put my whole trust in the Lord for my life and my well-being. He is so good and His goodness always shines.

Illness

This has been a season of illness for me. I normally don't get sick much at all, but I am currently getting over my second case of pneumonia since January. I also have something wrong with my left arm and back pain from my cough. I feel like I'm falling apart. My ear has been hurting me lately from the tumor as well. My surgery isn't until May 17th.

I have been thinking about all of this and wondering if I shouldn't be spending more time with God asking what I could do to change something in order to have better health. I will be turning 40 this year and I don't want my  health to start declining just because I am getting older. I want to be a Grandma and and Great-Grandma someday and I need to be healthy now in order to reach those years.

I know for one that I could eat healthier than I do. I could cut out the sweets and definitely eat more fruits and veggies. I still have about 20 pounds to lose since having Eliana and I could exercise more too. With the pneumonia and the cough that goes with it I feel like I've even gotten more lazier in the area of exercise and healthy eating. It's a vicious cycle. I get sick so I stop exercising. I'm tired from being sick so I can't plan our meals and I eat fast food/junk. I stay sick because I'm not eating right. The cycle continues.

I know I need to change my ways. I want to start eating and taking care of my body how God wants me to. I pray that He will show me what His plan is for me and that I will have the courage to make those changes. I have learned that I can't copy what works for someone else, I need to pray and follow God's special plan for me. He made my body and knows what is best.