The Three Nichols' Two Cents

Things That Bring Me Joy No. 7!

2012-01-26T08:24:00.005-06:00

Architecture brings me joy!I snapped this on our walk to the Art Museum (I know I won't stop going on about that walk!). Yes, I did edit it to enhance the blues of the window.
Pretty, right?

Reasons Why I Heart Downton Abbey

2012-01-25T07:52:00.011-06:00

If you aren't down with the show, Downton Abbey, yet then you are missing out! If you are psycho like me and your convex television unit doesn't receive pbs or you do live in the 21st century but just haven't witnessed this perfect tv show then just click here and you'll be whisked away to 1912- WAIT, STOP! DON'T TYPE IN "MAC N' CHEESE n BACON RECIPE" ON YOUR GOOGLE SEARCH TOOLBAR- WAIT, I know I said 1912, but this show is SO GOOD!!!! I know I said PBS- AGAIN STOP LOOKING AT THE NEXT 50 DAYS OF WEATHER FOR YOUR TOWN- come back.

As I was saying before I had to talk you into staying and reading my pathetic list of reasons I heart the show....

1. The scenery. The setting was made for my daydreams. So picturesque. So different than the concrete jungle I reside in. SO GLAD someone screen shot this because I screen shot it in my brain with my photo brain. It's one of my favorite images from the show:

2. The Clothes!!!! Oh the necklines, the high waistedness, the touch of sparkle, the sweetness!!! Can we just go back to this, please??? Can we just burn all the bootyshorts in the world and return to this beauty?:

3. The Sisters & Their Secrets! I can't get over these sisters! Namely, Mary and Edith. If that's what it's like to have a sister, phew! Maybe my only child thing wasn't so bad??? They are a mess and I love it.

4. It's made me want to clean my house and care for my home better.

I love how the Granthams interact with their staff. Am I down with caste systems- heavens no! But the show's characters' interactions with each other are brilliant. I love how much pride Mr. Carson and Ms. Hughes have in their work. Kind of reminds me of Colossians 3:23
"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men,"
5. Maggie Smith.

I saw someone say this and I think it's so true: "Maggie Smith is a rock star!" She is full of quips that only she can get away with. She rocked as Prof. McGonagall in HP and she rocks in DA as Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham. Go ahead on Maggie Smith!
6. I love the way the men in the movie fight for their country (with the exception of that wretched Thomas!). I love the spirit of a rally! I love the comaraderie of everyone pulling together to do what's right. This show seems to be all about upholding what is right. Well, except for a scandal or two...

7. The acting is spot on as the British would say, as is the writing. Really.

8. My most favorite thing about DA:
Mr. Bates & Anna's love.

I am a sci-fi/action kind of girl that doesn't have time for love stories, but I tell you what- their romance has made a believer out of me. No, I'm not going to go too far and rent the Notebook or read it, but oh my word. Beautiful. I just love the dignity in which he treats her and the compassion that she has for him. I yelled at the TV during the first season like a dude yelling at a football game when I thought things weren't going to work out for Mr. Bates' job. Oh how my heartstrings are pulled by him and his heart. Not in a hubba-hubba way, just the whole goodness of it all. Thank you PBS/Masterpiece/Downton Abbey for making a show all about goodness prevailing with a hint of "you don't say!" moments. You have stolen my heart!

Courage at the Bus Stop

2012-01-20T07:59:00.004-06:00

Look. Leelah has gotten 2 tardies so far.
And what does that really mean? I've gotten the tardies. ME. And while my nature wants to put 2 tallies on the ever growing Mom Fail Scorecard, I won't. Jesus won't let me. Phew, must be that whole forgiveness and grace concept thingy-ma-dealy-bobber.

However, the time has come for our sweet little bug to get on the bus. You'd think since it's yellow and synonymous with school, I'd be all for the bus. But alas, it has taken all of God's courage to let her get on it. You see, they are not given tardies. It's a free pass and giggles, apples, and rain boots on that yellow mode of transportation to Learning Land!

So why do my glasses have tear stains? Because I miss her so much. Even that last little bit of driving is a joy. Seeing her think about the upcoming day as she looks out the window and sings along to Mandisa's "Good Morning" jam. Dang, I miss that girl.

Being a parent takes so much courage.

We decided we'd try the busventure on Tuesday morning. We stood there hand in hand at the stop waiting and as it made it's famous half squeal/squeak sound to signify its arrival, Leelah squeezed my hand like crazy and said, "I think maybe when I'm older." And then we walked to school. And I got to continue being the fish "Marlin" from Finding Nemo who wouldn't let his little fish grow up for just a couple more days.

So today while she was eating her oatmeal, I asked her about riding the bus and her response was so sudden- "YES!" So we ran (I gimp jogged), hand in hand to the stop again. But this time as we were running/gimp jogging she let go of my hand and started to run faster. And then on to the bus my little Leelahbug went. And I waved and smiled with an excited, mommy-so-proud smile at my little lamb's new adventure.

And then cried/brisk gimp walked back home. Thank goodness our dog Boo was there. I swear, sometimes that silly Maltipoo is the only little reminder that I'm going to be okay in our nest until the day ends and my loved ones return.

I like to think that this morning, Jesus rode to school right next to my favorite little girl while patting her mommy's back as she showed courage at the bus stop.

Things that Bring Me Joy! No. 6

2012-01-19T06:28:00.004-06:00

SQUIRREL!

Took this while promenading to the art museum. I like to think she is an Artsy Squirrel who eats artsy acorns.
Plus, if you've never read this children's book:

You're missing out it's delightful!

Things That Bring Me Joy! No. 5 or is it 6?

2012-01-12T07:12:00.002-06:00

Those crazy paper/whatever material trees!??

Frugalicious Friday No. 15! Preparations.

2012-01-06T08:10:00.004-06:00

On fun note, this is how I looked during the morning send off of J & L today:

But it's not how I feel- that's a good thing!

Hey. It's time to talk about death.
Boy, that sure didn't have the ring to it I thought it would...
What about this?
Let's talk about dying.
Nope, not much better- wait:
Let's talk about Dying!
Okay no matter how fancy you type it, it's not fun to talk about or think about. Especially if you are not prepared financially.

If you are a Dave Ramsey listener already, please forgive me, but if not I'm talkin' 'bout wills. You've gotta have one. You just do. Trust me. Stuff can get messed up. If you have kids, come on! Well we don't have a will, but we are getting one in place- soon!

We purchased one online and it was C to the Onfusing! So it stalled us. Sure we have a list of 2 Parent Takeover Choices (Gillian's legal term) and have talked about how Leelah is going to get my extensive Charming Charlie/Sam Moon/With Hints of James Avery bauble collection, but we currently don't have that in writing so it's as good as nothing.

UNTIL TUESDAY! Thanks to some friends (they're on the kid takeover list they're that good), we have a referral for an attorney and we are going to meet on Tuesday to plan our estate package. I know, I know, "estate" sounds very Bruce Wayne to me. We don't have a manor. We do have a "cottage", i.e. suburb brick 1 story that we continually drive by because it looks like everyone else's "cottage". So we are going to plan the following:
1. Who's gonna take care of our kid.
2. Money- cha ching! Read: Life insurance in the form of a trust. (Again, scary word for "cottage" folk but important.)
Sidenote: Dave recommends you get life insurance that equals 8-10 times the amount of your yearly income. It is icky for me to think about this. He recs and we use Zander insurance. I can say from set up, they were on their game.
3. Power of attorneys- medical and decision making.
4. Just tell them you want the "estate package" without fries and they will know what to do, but shop around so you don't get hosed.

Do it. We had to save up for many months to get this taken care of. And thank the Lord, we are ready to talk about Death on Tuesday. We figured it'd be best to derail the debt snowball to get this knocked out first. Sometimes you have to do that.

It's part of growing up. I'm looking forward to this in a weird way. I'm sure there will be some self-defense mechanism jokes geared at my funeral preparations in hopes to lighten the mood. But let me encourage you that it's cool to grow up!

Things that Bring Me Joy! No. 5

2012-01-05T13:30:00.000-06:00

Globes are so cool, right?!

I'm Normal Now.

2012-01-04T13:21:00.013-06:00

Hold on, let me just clear away this plate of Lonely Mom Nachos I just slaughtered... Dang, those nachos were without hyperbole, sufficiently fantastic today.

First let me just say to all 6 people reading this over the next 4 days that this is not just some retrospect of me. Even I wouldn't want to read that. Gross.
This is for 2 sets of people:

Set 1. My people:
This is a shout out to dorks everywhere!
Past dorks, present dorks and future dorks.
Some random website's definition of Dork:" a silly, out-of-touch person who tends to look odd or behave ridiculously around others; a social misfit." Gillian's definition of Dork: a person who does not fit in or has issues.
Set 2. Them/Noodle Salad People/Cool Kids:
If you are someone who is and has always maintained a certain Super Mario Bros. 8th level of COOL- current and past alumni of SHS (located at 14555 Fern Drive
Houston, TX 77079) and any Middle School or High School I'm looking in your direction. Then this is for you too. Especially if you are raising a child. No that is not meant to any one person. I said people! Doesn't matter, y'all probably aren't reading this anyway, but if you are I can almost guarantee you will think twice before bullying someone after reading this.

This is me, circa 1st or 2nd grade:

I don't know where the heck my glasses were at that moment. Probably being crafted by some skilled coke-bottle-artisan at Eye Masters. And it's cliche now to talk about how the fashion was to sport Dorothy Hammil bangs, so I won't mention it.

There are a lot of things that can go wrong in this post. Lord, please protect those you need to.
Kindergarten:

Halloween Costume Day. I remember this day vividly. We had to parade around the school in our costumes. I guess my costume didn't make the cut- I thought it was beautiful for the record- and I endured an hour of all grade levels yelling out horrible names with pointing fingers and let's just say I was a crying ballerina/princess/fairy/whatever the heck I was supposed to be. I've had a lot of bad dreams that weren't actually dreams. (STICK WITH ME- IT'S NOT ALL SAD!) And I do realize that this is simply suburbian pain and is nothing compared to other worlds of pain.

From K-12, I went to a total of 7 schools in the same city. It sucked. I knew I was really in for trouble when I began first grade at a new school. A private school. It wasn't the majority of the kids' faults for thinking I was weird. I was and they'd been raised together. I had a couple of people befriend me, and that was air into my lungs. St. Cecelia alum, I'm sure you were perfectly nice. I'm so very sorry for any pain I inlicted on any of you. And thank you to the people that befriended me how I was.
It didn't help that homelife wasn't all roses. It was scary and I was hurting. There, I said it. I'm sorry for the implications, but this is important.

Sometimes the people you are the meanest to have the worst situation going on at home so lay off or maybe just smile at them once. These people didn't ask to be picked on- okay some do and they are just jerks you've got to pray for- but people like me, shoot, I was just a big ball of weird because of some heinous homework if you will. Would you please remember this Set 2? As Jack Nicholson's character so brilliantly stated in the movie, As Good As It Gets, "Some of us have great stories, pretty stories that take place at lakes with boats and friends and noodle salad. Just no one in this car. But, a lot of people, that's their story. Good times, noodle salad."
I was an un-noodle salad person in a school full of noodle salad peeps.
And I'm sure there were others like me that were better at hiding their luggage from home who had less bushy hair and less glasses out there. I didn't corner the market on weird.

So you combine the homeload of not-awesomeness (being yelled at day in and day out), the new school number 4 & 5, and combine that with hormones and a living out daily as a contestant on an episode of "What Not To Wear" and you've got: MIDDLE SCHOOL.
Oh crap. Just typing that gave me goosebumps from fear, shame, and remembrance of acne. SUCK SUCK SUCK!!!
Come on, who's with me!?!? SET 1!?!?! Oh shut up, Set 2- y'all were having the best time ever. Sorry, Set 2 about saying "shut up" to you.
Here it goes- go grab a barf bowl:

I know that I am "fearfully and wonderfully made" and I know I would die if Leelah said she ever looked like "barf", but what crappy forest am I in really? I know, THE FOREST OF SHAME. Oh well, at least it was in a rad marithe francois girbaud shirt!Ever been to 3 middle schools from 6-8th grade before (same city)? I have!
I want to take a second and thank some friends who decided to be nice when they could have joined in the crowd of mean.
Thank you:
Bonnie W.
Leigh W.
Meredith G.
Tally K.
Simone W.
Katie K.
Sarah H.
Steven A.
I'm thinking super hard to remember anyone else... I'm sorry if I left someone out.
These people made the pain go away. Even if it was just a smile. Like a scene out of a movie, these girls took me in at the lunch table and gave me the breakdown of how stuff went down SFMS. And how, it would be okay if I didn't wear a Yaga shirt and maybe considered eyebrow, lips and face enhancement.
Are you someone that can change the course of someone's life? That'd be pretty great if you were- answer: YOU ARE!
I didn't have a clue at the time that God used these people as instruments in my life for good. And for once, I started looking forward to going to school. Like I had a chance. A respite, if you will, from home drama.
Oh and I had gotten contacts. Back when my eye contouring allowed for that.

High School:

I finally started to care less about what the cool people thought. Let me eat a snack pack everyday in my brown bag lunch and make stupid jokes if I want to. I'm not hurting anyone! And the less I gave a crap, the nicer people were to me.
I decided one day- I'm just going to start smiling at everybody. No matter how scary, how mean, how pretty, how cool, how hot of a boy, or how un-alike me they were. Well, it sank in in my junior year.

School had become, dare I say, fun. My list of chums stuck around with me up through High School. Our numbers were growing (Jane P., Katelin M., Melissa B., Rebecca D., Stephie B., Tracey C., Jose C., April K., etc.) Thanks for being kind. There were so many cliques, which makes sense. But we were just normal. Even though I had been kicked out of school twice for living out of the district- yeah I'm in counseling now- and I dislocated my hip during drill team tryouts which I made and subsequently dropped out due to said hip snap and had to crutch for 3 months- great practice for the 7 months of crutching in 2010!
This being quasi-normal thing was feeling so good that I did something so insane simply because I thought it would be fun.
I tried out for cheerleader? Yes, that should be a question. I was a mess. And...

I never bring this up. I don't want this label and I'm not bragging. But I do have to own it because God blessed me with this Cinderella opportunity. And I can't stress enough how insane this was for me to do. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was a blessing. Even though it required me to hang around and go to practices with the "cool" people (Maybe I should have thought about that before I tried out.). I realized that they were nice too. Thanks fellow cheerleaders for being nice to an unknown. And it was fun. I still think the votes were miscounted in my favor, but I'll take it!

What was the point of this mini-novel anyway?
Be nice to a dork. Do it. If it's hard for you, then just smile at someone. You never know the impact that a smile can have.
I still had to deal with crazy inner strife until I accepted Jesus, which wasn't until after college- April 2007. And now I can truly say that I feel at peace, which I guess means that I feel normal. I fit in with myself. And with all the major drama that has gone on since then, that is a big deal.

Parents:
1. Pray.
2. Don't flip flop schools if you don't have to.
3. Pray.
4. Speak words of life into your kids.
5. Be nice to everyone you can and let your kids see you befriend a person from Set 1.
6. For goodness sakes, don't be a jerk to any employee anywhere you don't know what they have going on in their life!

My Not Gonna List for 2012 (It's short. Just like me.)

2012-01-01T20:10:00.006-06:00

I'm calling resolutions "Not Gonnas". Mostly to avoid failure that seems to be linked with the word "resolution". Okay, maybe it's not linked per se, but you get it.

1. I'm not gonna complain this year, a la Phil. 2:14:
"Do everything without complaining or arguing..."
Definitely going to need God's help with this, because complaining is one of my best skills. Truly. A lot of my best joking material is composed solely of fine-tuned gripes. See, I'm already complaining about not being able to complain. Yeah, I do okay about not complaining (through God's grace) about stuff like not seeing or not walking but day to day mishaps and oddities- nuh-huh.

2. I'm not gonna wish for better.
"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." Phil. 4:6 I know I get anxious when I start to compare or measure up, when I should just be saying thank you!
Pretty sure I'm going to have to pray daily for contentment. It's usually the wishing for better that leads to complaining. I mean, I woke up in America today. I'd say that's having it pretty good already.

3. I'm not gonna read the Twilight series. Wow. I already made that happen. Score 1 out of 3 - sweet!

UPDATE: 4. I forgot this one: I'm not gonna talk on the cell phone and drive. I just can't. After seeing that car graveyard during our Spring Staycation after our wreck, it just did something to me. Plus, I don't really have the best eye skills. John and I have promised each other not to call while we know the other is driving. That's especially hard for John since he's in the car for 2 hrs everyday. I did call him the other night out of a dinner emergency. Remember that collect call commercial a while back: Mr. Wehadababyitsaboy!? I called him and was like "Needchinesefoodorderandpickuppleasebyeloveyou!" OH and we didn't wreck due to cell phone use, some dude thought his car would work better without working brakes and sideswiped us.

I told you it was short. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Frugalcious Friday No. 14!

2011-12-30T13:00:00.003-06:00

Tough Decisions.
Not really tough per se. But sometimes the toughest stuff is in the day to day decision making (wow, what breakthrough thinking Gillian!).
John and I had the blessing of time to ourselves this week and when you rarely get just time together during the week it is almost overwhelming to choose from all the options.
Overwhelming in a good way.
But there's this thing called a budget that we strive to adhere to and that helps!

So we came up with some date tips so we wouldn't go hog wild. Maybe these can help some other couple out there like us who trying to pay off debt and not go insane from lack of fun in that journey...

1. No sit-down eating! Meaning, a place where you have to tip. Thankfully you have more options these days: Freebirds, Mission Burrito, etc. where you can avoid the cost of tipping a server. Sorry servers, but you understand, right? And we like to frequent places where if you frequent them enough you can totally score free stuff- i.e. Freebirds. I can't tell you how many free burritos I've eaten... However, we did splurge on Chili's, which might seem like a deal, but only if we can eat for under 30 if we are going to sit down.

2. Do you REALLY want to see that movie? Or is it a renter? We were all ready to Cinemark it like it's hot with free drink coupon in hand (sign up for weekly email coupons for concessions via cinemark.com) and it just hit me: I don't really have to see this movie. Just because we had the time we didn't necessarily have the cashola to spend on a movie. Well, we did actually but we are saving for a will (I know I say that all the time). So instead, we discovered that it was free day at the Art Museum and if you don't mind parking in a far away, albeit free, parking lot then you are good to go!

3. Figure the gas costs! I've said it again, but it bears repeating for all the Aggies like myself out there- you might think you are saving in not buying a ticket somewhere or spending, but don't waste that momentum on gas! It does help to have a fuel-efficient vehicle though! :) Hooray for Hondas and Toyotas!

Things That Bring Me Joy! No.3

2011-12-30T12:24:00.002-06:00

Red Doors!!!!

What Christmas Means to Us.

2011-12-26T11:07:00.002-06:00

It means letting the kid (and the hubby) help decorate the tree because it brings them sheer joy.

While mom cries over all the ornaments that are filled with past pictures of sweet, chubby cheeks…

It means that sometimes magic and innocence can go together to create just plain, good fun.

(Leelah reading Santa’s letter and how Santa is so proud of her decision for Jesus this year!)

It means that in receiving presents, you can actually feel the future fun to be had with each other.

And that mom needs to stock up on safety goggles…

It means that we learn we have been enjoying the best gifts all year long.

JESUS!

And family to love on!

May the joy that Christmas brings bless you with the Happiest New Year – no matter what the circumstances may seem like!

Merry Christmas to you!

2011-12-24T08:41:00.000-06:00

and may your year be blessed too!

Things That Bring Me Joy No.2!

2011-12-22T18:33:00.005-06:00

Staring at a Christmas Tree with all the lights off.

Yes you can put Star Wars on your tree. That just happened.

Today it's a 4 pic special! Usually it's a solo deal, but I couldn't resist!

Things That Bring Me Joy. No.1

2011-12-15T13:31:00.004-06:00

Since Thursday is such a jerk for getting in the way of the ever so Glam-tastic Friday, I have decided to start a "Things That Bring Me Joy" weekly post on the said day of jerkyness- Thursday.

It will only be a picture and a title. Because I'm a photographer and it's fun.
Here's the first one:

"Puzzle Trees" Nature so fine it should be on a puzzle!
That's SOOC (photog speak for "Straight Out Of Compton- I mean Camera, Camera!AKA: unedited).

Still alive

2011-12-14T15:15:00.001-06:00

Just editing photos for my photo business! But I will return with thoughts on shopping yuckiness and on just lovin' em anyway...

Lemons into Cherry Limeade

2011-12-05T22:25:00.002-06:00

So glad that I get to share my testimony with the Joy of Living Ladies tomorrow! God has made my life's lemons into Cherry Limeade- which tastes waaaay better than plain old Lemonade.
Say a prayer that people won't see my sweat leaching from my body! Thanks!

Frugalicious Friday No. 13!

2011-12-02T08:20:00.002-06:00

How to live in your means and then some tip for the day...
Group-couponing!!!!
With websites like:
Groupon
Houston On The Cheap

We no longer pay full price for food or events. Way to get smart local businesses! Dewberry farms for instance- we saved $24 by purchasing a groupon for them.
Our Christmas cards- I paid $25 for a groupon for Picaboo worth $75. I saved big time with that one! The custom-made ink stamp that I will be putting on said cards- $20 instead of $40 because I got a deal on Groupon!

You can go to Groupon right now and check your city, I have Houston on here, for daily deals in everything: restaurants, events, electronics, spa stuff (beware you see a groupon for some kind of waxing treatment daily), vacations, etc.

It's great! I really like the HoustonOnTheCheap.com website. That site has a compilation of deals throughout Houston which is how I knew where to get my Tom's shoes early bday gift for myself at 20% off at Whole Foods Market! And I like that it also tells me what's going on that weekend in Houston as well as giving me a discount for whatever event at the same time. Oh and through December they are doing a 12 days of giveaway stuff and their prizes are all Houston-specific.

And I was in no way paid or asked to do this post for either site. I just thought I'd share some scoop with you guys that haven't gotten on that group coup train!

But You're Supposed to Be This Way.

2011-12-01T14:08:00.005-06:00

Blog it out. I've just got to blog it out.
Thursday + Sprinkles of Rain + Memories + Dramatic Music (Pandora's Fault!) = Reflectionary Introversion Blogging.

Forgive my melodrama, but it's my blog and I can be melodramatic if I want to.

I didn't know it when I awakened, but in my house today there is a Fog Advisory. And I mean a pure mental fog. While driving back home from dropping off the kid, I came upon a beautiful sight on the sidewalk:
There was one of my favorite friends walking alongside her dad. Just a dad and daughter pair. Probably talking about childhood memories or the weather or frivolous things which are sometimes the best subjects. I noticed they walked the same. My dad and I walked the same too. People always mentioned that.

Well being a Thursday (which should be called "Jerkday" for getting in the way of Friday), and being that it's December 1st the day when you realize Christmastime is near and being that I have lonely moments: I let those tears come right down.

Sweet friend, you know who you are. Please don't feel bad about this. I'm so grateful for your moment. And I did hear Jesus speak to my heart- You can walk with Me.

And then I went to Starbucks and had some coffee with my Sweet T. It was great. I have no words to express the way God's blessed my heart with my sister-friends. We talked about what was eating Gillian Grape and I told her what it feels like to have the linchpin of your family go home to Heaven.

It's like a bomb. Every holiday that explosion site and wreckage becomes visible again. Relationships become scattered and the place where you went and did your normal family thing for the holidays is a hole and no longer there. People get weird. They get distant after the linchpin goes and it's just not the same. You begin to cling to whatever family you can find. God blessed me with in-laws turned in-loves. So blessed.

I'm going to be honest. How many of us have a relative that didn't get the memo on how to be towards their loved ones? That's what I thought. If you breathe oxygen, you are raising your hand in allegiance at this question.

Well, I got that situation going on in a big way. It has broken my heart. Decimated it. And has taken years to be rebuilt with the correct glue of Jesus Christ. Oh and loads of Christian Counseling (my 2 appts have been made and you're welcome!).

WHY ARE YOU STILL NOT HOW YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE IN THE ROLE THAT YOU HAVE, RELATIVE!? I KNOW YOU KNOW HOW TO BE RIGHT, BUT YOU INTEND TO LIVE YOUR LIFE OUT WITH ONLY YOURSELF IN MIND.

And then, I'm reminded Biblically to not expect to have a healthy relationship with an unhealthy person.
"Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you, Reprove a wise man and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man and he will be still wiser, Teach a righteous man and he will increase his learning." Prov. 9:8-9.
In other words, pick your battles folks.
You think you can talk sense to someone that doesn't want to hear it and win? Nope. But you can get crazy from doing that!

So when faced with relative, I mentally re-read Boundaries by Dr.'s Cloud and Townsend. I respect the position they have in my life. I keep a smile on my face, but not in my heart. I pray to the Lord for the words to say and for them to get it one day for their sake. NOT mine. I get that I may never see the fruit for myself and I don't want to, but I do want that fruit for them.

And then I go home, stare at the wall for 30 minutes, eat a healthy amount of Blue Bell Peppermint ice cream, hug the sweetest husband and daughter ever made, and watch Parks and Recreation streaming on Netflix so I can end the day with the emotion that causes laughter. And then wake up in a fog and blog about it the next day in hopes that someone who has a similar situation will take comfort in knowing they are not alone. No matter how alone feeling it might seem.

The ‘Best Parents Award’ Does NOT Go To…

2011-11-30T13:05:00.002-06:00

The Hurzband and Me.

Looks like we missed our chance to win that highly prized Best Parents Award again! All because of a lollypop which is most likely our daughter’s euphemism for “anything fun”.

I found this the other night in the study/craft room/guest room (or the “slash room” as we should call it), and it took me aback. One, because I had already shed tears 5 minutes prior to seeing it due to my conviction that I don’t spend enough quality time with her and two, because it was a little freaky to behold and three, because it was also funny.

So I cried to John dramatically, “JOHN YOU HAVE TO COME SEE THIS!” He’s used to this beckoning by the way. Leelah was sleeping by the way. And he laughed. So I laughed. We laughed together.

What else could we do?

And I asked Leelah about it during breakfast the next day. Yes, it was what I feared it was about: “You don’t want to do stuff that I want to do and won’t let me do stuff I don’t want to do.” I wanted to say, “Remember when we totally had that Nerf Dart Gun War and attacked Daddy when he came in the door from work last week and when I sewed you the ugliest angry bird ever this weekend?” But I didn’t. I just listened.

She’s a quality timer. That’s her love language and that is hard for me. So there you go. But I won’t let the enemy use this as ammo for guilt that I’m not doing a good parenting job. I will just pray for God to carve our special moments of quality time and enjoy it all: the milk spills, the whining, the hair drying, the nose-mucus-emission, the griping, the Hi-Ho-Cherry-Ho, the sad chalkboard notes, the giggles, all of it.

I won’t wait until we go to Disneyworld to have fun. Or that perfect moment with un-spilled glitter and some beautiful craft and joyous music in the background with just enough lighting for me to photograph it for facebook. We’ll start now and be thankful for it.

The Worst Word You Could Ever Say.

2011-11-29T08:40:00.006-06:00

At this very moment, I am wishing that Leelah's classmate, whom I think needs his birth certif. checked because he looks like he is in 2nd grade, would not have told Leelah about the F word. Or as she called it: "The worst word you could ever say."
That's right folks! It starts in Kindergarten! Oh my gracious. I really thought I'd be brokenhearted that she would hear such awful things, and I am a little. But I'm also thankful that she came to me with it. I've learned not to completely freak out and thus, freak her out over things like that or else she will NOT be coming to me with heavy stuff.

Brief example, we were in a public restroom the other day and she asked me something I cannot share. I wanted to yell over her something in gibberish so her question would not be heard by the said public in the restroom. Like this: BLAAAHHBABHAHAH HAHBABJACKOSH!
But I felt a little voice tell me: answer her calmly or she will never ask in the future. OH snap!
So I calmly answered her with the best biology I could muster. I did heart biology and health class. I mean who didn't?
All she wanted was an answer. She wasn't wrong to ask. Lord, please don't let me ever make her feel wrong for asking or telling me anything.
Phew.

But back to the whole bad word sitch, yes, very upsetting. I just told her that if that person ever uses those words to tell him this:
"I will not be friends with you if you use those words." She said okay. Simple.
I also told her that people use very bad words and to NOT be friends with them.
If you are reading this and you cuss, I'm sorry my kid cannot hang out with you.

Yes, I stub my toe and I cannot control the volume of my stage 1 (f is stage 4)cuss word that comes out. I'm a human being with terrible eyesight. But it's almost as if it physically hurts me to hear those words now. We had to move tables the other night at Denny's, which FYI is the high school hang out, just because there was a table full of pottymouths. And cable, DGMS! (Don't Get Me Started!)

We are not sheltering her. She is in public schooling and we are thankful for that and those lessons. But we also don't have to expose her to that mess while we are trying to chillax and eat french toast and grand slams. I seriously wanted to grand slam them with some sense!!

Again, I am not a goody-goody. We are trying to raise her to be relevant and interact but yet:
"so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky.."
Phil. 2:15

You Know You Shop at Target Too Much When....

2011-11-28T08:23:00.004-06:00

These are sadly, or not sadly at all very, very true:

1. Your family has an endearing, personal nickname for the store: "Targie"

2. You see nothing wrong or peculiar with the Crazy Target Lady's actions or demeanor and in fact, admire her skills.

3. You know exactly how much the popcorn combo price has increased in percentage form. (Well, I know it's gone up like 20 cents, John can do percents he's an engineer)

4. You hesitate to wear any outfit ensemble that consists of a red shirt and khaki pants for fear some kook like yourself will ask you where some obscure organization contraption is should you happen to go into said "Targie".

5. You breathe a sigh when you enter the Dollar Spot and it's been restocked.

6. You've had a celebration to commemorate a milestone with the pharmacy crew (love those guys!)!

7. You have a favorite dressing room to try on pants that are too long for any chick under 5'7".

8. Your husband blatantly tells you "DON'T GO TO TARGET TODAY!!!" when you mention you are going shopping with a friend... (sorry John!)

9. You've had more than 6 of those little plastic tub things from samples you've eaten over the hours because you got caught up in a freak storm and couldn't leave.

10. You know exactly where you will lose cell phone reception in the store and where you won't! (Ladies underwear section is a good place!)

And it behooves me to offer some fun contributions from some friends on FB:

when you say to your 7 year old, "mommy has to run an errand" and he says: "oh, so you're going to Target?"

When the nice man who works the photo booth by the door recognizes when you have not been there in over a week. :) (His name is Anthony and he is the best greeter ever!)

When the checkers comment on how they've been able to watch your child grow up since they were a tiny baby and how big they've gotten.

the lady at starbucks knows that you come on wednesdays with only one child and then when two are added she knows...spooky

when you could literally draw a map of the store with all departments included.
...when you give directions to other customers in the store.
...when you are telling someone where something is and it includes "You know that clearance end cap that's by the frying pans?"
...when you stop to have an extended conversation with the pharmacist every time you go in there and know about her current and coming children (baby girl, due in April).
...when you go in there just to waste time.
...when you know which cashiers deal well with your extreme couponing (and which ones are coupon nazis!)
...you know exactly when the holiday stuff's percent off will occur after holidays.

When your friends see that crazy holiday lady commercial and think of you.... ;)

When you decide to go to Target because you are craving the popcorn and coke combo.

When your kid thinks that's the only place to get an icee.

When you are all dressed up and don't want to waste it on going to WalMart.

When your list of reasons you're glad to move home includes "Target"....and you accidentally say that before "family"....

and another gem one that my friend's husband coined:

All questions in this house can either be answered by "God" or "Target"! Genius!

What I am Thankful For...

2011-11-24T20:20:00.003-06:00

Here's my list:

1. That our sweet little one has Jesus in her heart forever!

2. That I can walk without crutches this year!

3. That I can see the sweet faces I love so much and read and drive myself places!

4. That I can kneel down to pray or to pick up things.

5. For Gabby Giffords being able to survive and recover- what an inspiration she is to so many! She rocks my world.

6. My beautiful sister-friends that just know my soul and are family to me.

7. That silly husband that I just can't get over.

8. That we have food, water, and shelter.

9. That the game Ms. PacMan was invented. That game brings me joy.

10. Cheese.

11. Bread.

12. Cheesy Bread.

13. Drinking coffee on the couch.

14. Our troops guaranteeing our freedom!

15. That I won't be shopping on Black Friday.

16. My In-Loves. Really blessed in that arena!

17. My new Adventure!

18. Our little garden. Grow seeds, grow!

19. The color yellow. Okay, the other colors too.

19.5 Barry Manilow and his hit disco song, Copacabana. Wasn't he just 70's gorgeous?

20. Having peace in my heart regardless.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU!

Dang it, Jimmy F.!!!

2011-11-23T14:48:00.005-06:00

The whole Michelle Bachmann intro song thing made me sad. It made me so sad I have decided to let you in on a letter that I'm really going to send, probably electronically to Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

Dearest Jimmy Fallon and or Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Staff Personnel reading this,
Well shucks Jimmy. We are fans. I mean, we like to laugh. The husband and I have a big ol' jar that we like to believe is our "Saving for our first trip to New York so we can see Jimmy Fallon with our best friends and eat pizza and pretzels simultaneously one day dream" Jar. And now, what do we do!???

(The Jar)
We are from Katy, Texas, remember the Houston Rodeo (not the Alamo, that was all war-ish) you and Higgins had fun with? But look Jimmy (can we call you that?), we are downtrodden about the whole intro music thing now and I might just not put my quarters in the big ol' jar. I might put tears instead. No, not because we are all about Michelle B., not at all really we are kind of on the Cain Train, but because it kind of makes us think, gosh, would Questlove make fun of us too?
We like to dream about what Roots would play for us (no, really we've had discussions about this)?
But now we don't know would it be a song entitled:
Stupid Suburban Face Bleep Bleep?!!
I mean who are we to you, but just people that aren't funny enough to be paid for?
We love your show. We love your talent. We love the Roots' talent too.
BUT DANG IT!!!!!
WHYYY!!!!!!***sadness screams!!!*****
Lamenting from Texas,
Gillian and John N.

Frugalicious Friday No.12!

2011-11-18T07:35:00.000-06:00

Take it, Sweet T!

F-to the R-U-G-the A-the L… Frugalicious… It’s hot hot.
Thank you Fergie, for recording that song. It works so well for these Frugalicious Friday posts!
Thank you, Gillian, for being so candid about your budgeting/saving/not going insane method of being a penny pincher. Inspiring.
I’ve come up with a few little tidbits to share with you gals about saving money where you can. There’s no theme to these suggestions, so they are kind of random. Some of them may not be groundbreaking, but some of them might make ya’ go “hmmmmm…. I can do that!”
1) Eating at Chick-fil-a with your kiddos. It can be pricey when you add up all those kids meals and your meal. Since I’ve just got the one kid, I order the 8-count nugget meal, and we share it. It costs around $6. Face it, the kid is only going to eat about 3 of those nuggs, and we adults only need to eat about 4 to be satisfied. Share the fries and the drink (free refills!!!) If you’ve got more than one kid, get the 12 count meal and share it. Savings??? Nearly $4 by not purchasing a kids’ meal with overpriced milk and a book they don’t care about because all they really wanna do is play it up in the stinky-feet CFA playground.
2) Free entertainment. Live near a Bass Pro??? Take your kiddos there instead of that sweaty trip to the zoo. They’ll have just as much fun looking at the big fish tank and the stuffed moose, deer, and bears. Also, most zoos have websites your kids can look at showing live footage of some of their animals. Check it out.
3) Grocery shopping. NEVER go hungry. You WILL make impulse buys if you are hungry. Make a list before you go of everything you will need for the week and stick to that list. Also, it helps to carry a calculator with you to keep a running tab of your purchases. I kind of make it my personal version of supermarket sweep…let’s see how much money I have left over in my grocery budget. And this may not be a good thing, but if at the end of the week, we still have grocery money left, I move it to my restaurant envelope. YAY!!! It’s like my little reward! In my state we don’t have a grocery tax, so we don’t have to figure that. But if you do live in a state that has a tax on groceries, be sure to leave room in your budget for that.
4) KID-SWAP! Need a night out with your hubby-hubby??? Don’t have the budget for a sitter??? Swap services with close friends. They can watch your kids while you get some quality time in with your man. And when that couple wants a night out, you can watch their kids. I GUARANTEE you, your friend is secretly wishing for this scenario to go down. Just ask.
5) Do you or your husband get overtime pay??? My husband is a salary guy, but he also receives overtime pay (saaaaaweeeeet!). DO NOT DEPEND ON YOUR OVERTIME FUNDS!!! There may come a time when the overtime just isn’t there. Any money that you have over the base salary pay should go into savings. After your tithe, just transfer the overtime pay into your savings on payday…like it was never there to begin with. You’ll be glad you did this later, I promise. Now if you are still working your debt snowball, by all means, put your OT pay towards your debt.
Remember gals: Being on a budget can be fun. And YOU can be Fabulously Frugalicious!

While You Wait

2011-11-17T08:36:00.007-06:00

So I really don't want this blog to be about "That time when I had 10 eye surgeries (there's more coming) and when I couldn't walk for 7 months stories and lessons." But there are just so many things that time of suck did teach my heart. It WAS used for good. It DID seem evil, but was made for good. God has been putting this on my heart to write and I got to listen and God willing, get my point across.

I know of several young, precious women that are going through tumult with their health. They feel as if their body is crumbling and none of the doctors know why. I'VE BEEN THERE!!! With pain so awful it consumes your mind.

I know of several young women who have had a parent graduate to Heaven.

What are the key words here?: "young women".

Traditionally, it's not young people that face these traumas. Whoa, I just felt myself getting a little term paper up in here and it made my soul shiver, not quite like the words 'accounting' or 'finance' but there was some past-stress-fear there... Sorry I digressed, but it's what I do! But the young part is where the enemy will isolate you.

What did the waiting teach me? It taught me to reassess what I'm waiting on or rather WHOM. You are not waiting on doctors or their staff to call you back or results or for the grief to pass (it won't and I'm sorry!) you are waiting on the Lord! And knowing that makes it SO MUCH EASIER!!! Forgive my caps, but I'm adamant in wanting the world (of 3 people) to know that I wasted a lot of life and thought on waiting. It looked like this:
If I just make it to that specialist- he or she will know what is wrong with my body and then I will be healed!

But I never stopped to think that God was healing me with illness. And when I finally stopped and had been to 15 specialists, spent $$$, and traveled to Rochester, MN for Mayo Clinic and back I went: I'm done. Or rather God told me to stop waiting, stop searching. I mean, I still get calls from the genetic doctor at Mayo and letters stating: Unspecified Connective Tissue Disorder.

So I just stopped. I began to live with the pain, accept it and not rationalize it to death only to wake up the next day shocked that it was still there. I stopped idolizing the pain, the undiagnosis, the doctors, the yuck. All by God's grace alone you see.

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

2 Cor. 12:9

Even today, people still ask this former pit-dweller, "Did they ever figure out what it was that caused you so much pain?" I like to throw in a little submarrow bone edema in the femoral neck label (which was the only thing I got), but honestly I know what it was: God allowed that pain to teach me whatever He needed to. In my case it was unconditional love.

And then the pain gradually lessened and I wake up now shocked it doesn't hurt anymore.

But guess what folks, I'm still waiting. I'm waiting to adopt the baby I know with all certainty the Lord has made for us. But did you notice the "I" pronoun? Yes, I'm waiting on my husband to see what I see. He is my practical rock. While I'm a tornado, he is the immovable leather belt that held down Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton in Twister, and that's one of the reasons why I adore him. We are praying to be on the same page. He is waiting on my sight to fail and I'm waiting on my foresight of more kiddos. I love him.

And then I let the stillness set in and that small, quiet voice spoke to my heart: You are not waiting on him, you are waiting on Me. Yes, Lord. I'm so sorry I forgot all of what I learned last year and the years before that.

Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!

Isaiah 30:18

Are you waiting?
Waiting to find the one?
Waiting to find the perfect job?
The perfect house?
The illness to be done?
The kid to stop doing ____________?
The husband to stop doing _________?
To reunite with __________?
I know I have waited on all those things, but now have peace knowing that I'm waiting on the Lord and His perfect will for my life, which is greater than what I can even dream of:

Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.

John 14:12

Stop waiting on yourself or someone else and wait on Him. That's some true hope right there.

Frugalicious Friday- No. 11! But Sometimes…

2011-11-11T09:17:00.004-06:00

Thank you for letting me pretend I know something about saving some dollar-dollar-billz-y’all, because really I don’t!

Last week we had a Frugalicious fail, hence no post. You see, the huzby and I have been having bi-weekly budget meetings for about 2 years. We have not missed one, thank the Lord. So last week we prayed, we got out the T.I. calckie, the worksheets, the planner and the tears. Yes. I cried. I cried for about an hour. Poor John. I’m confident he will be awarded a Husband of a High Maintenance Wife Medal in Heaven.

I cried because the enemy was pouring heaping amounts of shame on my heart in the form of Baby Steps; which is such a great system, but I let it have control, i.e. become an idol. It was damaging to my heart and my marriage.

I cried because we are still on step 2 in the whole Total Money Makeover Plan: Pay off Debt. I don’t want to be on Step 2, I want to be on Step 3: 3-6 mos. of savings. I want to be able to afford necessities like a will and do things right!!! Those US legal forms (where you can purchase cheap DIY wills) were confusing for us. The enemy is taking all these desires of my heart for my family- which are in essence, good – and twisting them for his use of unmet benchmarks for my guilt. Don’t let this happen to you friends.

John reminded me that we have paid about $15,000 in medical bills since we started this plan. That I’ve had 13 surgeries since 2008- when we started. Those have all been paid for by cash- or monthly payments- never credit card. PRAISE JESUS!

First Tip: Don’t go on a Guilt Trip if your kid needs some shoes that require some spendage so the shoes will last. And as one of my Bible study leaders pointed out: God doesn’t use shame to motivate, encourage, etc. “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1

That leads me to: But Sometimes.

But sometimes, you have to spend more to get things of greater lasting value and I have found this true in several areas: In other words, don’t buy sprint stuff (cheap) when you need equipment for a marathon.

-Kids’ stuff: toys, shoes, backpacks, socks, underwear, etc. It’s best to spend 5% more so that it will last. Stride Ride and Sketcher had it right all along. Now, do you have to buy 4+ pairs maybe not?

-Purses. It’s true. I can attest. Unless, you want to keep spending money on cheap purses that break in various ways go ahead.

-Your Shoes!!! Don’t go overboard, but realize that you take 1,000 steps+ a day in those bad boys! Yes, you can budget for shoes and clothes.

-Consider trips to the store. My sweet friend brought up a point yesterday- sure I could save $2 on that by going to another store, but I might spend more on gas. Very true.

My other tip is: WRITE IT DOWN.

You want inspiration: Rocky. Rocky knew the exact training he needed to win the fight (or at least hospitalize his opponent). He knew who his opponent (think your debt) was. He had a plan (budget, cash envelopes, drinking eggs). Your plan is to pay off debt, or save money or whatever but you need to have the numbers written down or you will be fighting in the dark against something in the dark.

This means writing exactly: House mortgage balance, car balance (call and get the pay off amount), credit card balances, school loan balances, etc. Do the work to find out the exact balances. Type up a spreadsheet or poster it! Remember, most of us are visual learners anyway and if you learn by writing- then you be the one who writes it up!

And type up the amount need for those desires too: will, disney vacay, a shower re-mo, etc. These are your future goals.

Congrats, you now have a plan! So I did that this week. I don’t know why we’ve only used the balances in bill form as our goal plan, but that DOES NOT WORK. And there’s just something about seeing that decrease in debt on paper. Dave always talks about this on the radio and compares it to a map for where you are going. Without it you are lost. I completely agree!! And make a big deal out of the victories (family meeting cheer, play that Celebrate song everytime or the Rocky training montage song- have fun!). Let it be a family affair. Successful companies do this, why can’t your family?

I’m sorry that these “tips” probably seem like when someone asks you “Did you check the batteries?” or “Where’d you last see it?” kind of obvious, but I know this was a huge encouragement for us.

Leelah's Decision for Jesus!

2011-11-09T20:35:00.003-06:00

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
Matthew 19:14

Tonight as we tucked our precious child into bed we read her a little pamphlet that our children's Pastor Bud had given her during her last visit with him. The little book took her down the "Roman Road" and while John and I kept looking at each other as if to telepathically communicate: "But is she ready Lord? Does she get it?" We both saw the creeping smile on her sweet face stretch across those cheeks we adore. The peace and the excitement that seemed to ooze out from her little body gave us the answer we needed: she had decided and she was ready for Jesus to take over her life. She repeated the prayer and then had a celebratory jump on the bed. And we know that Jesus, The Father, the angels, PawPaw, Granny, Grandmother Barbara and my father- her Gigi all were jumping for joy with her in Heaven.
Please pray for her little but mighty walk. We plan on making her Baptism arrangements soon- because she said over and over again "I'm GOING TO SHARE MY STORY AND BE BATHTIZED!!!!"
This is the day we have prayed for! Thank you Jesus!!!

What Stuff Should Really Be Called...

2011-11-08T13:35:00.002-06:00

In my humble opinion this is what I think of:

Taco Bell should be called "I don't have enough money to eat out and I could make a sandwich at home but I don't want to- place."

The movie and book, The Notebook should be called "The movie/book to watch/read for people that have never had anything really horrible happen to them so as to produce emotions."

Law & Order: SVU should be called "Assaults." (and see above)

Domestic Cats should be called "Animals that would eat you if they were bigger than you."

Lounge Wear should be called "Schlub-time clothes."

Target should be called "Everyone that has breath's happy place."

La Madeleine Restaurant should be called "The place I go to feel like I'm in Europe, or at least, Epcot."

Beach/Mountain/Castle Scenery Calendars should be called "Daydream Fodder Material or The calendar you buy when you really hate where you live/work."

I-Phones should be called "Fancy technological device that my child will throw in a toilet."

Bread and or Cheese should be called "Food I like more than people."

Unicycles should be called "I want to show off-cycles." (We saw a man leisurely riding around on one a couple weekends ago in our neighborhood and I kind of wanted to push him off it in a nice way.)

Tacos should be called "House-Smell-Changers."

Bananas should be called "Lunch-Smell-Ruiners."

Kleenex boxes on the back dash of the backseat of cars should be called "Crazy people cars or Cars that have Cars with Severe Seasonal Allergies passengers."

Today's Ice Cream Truck/Van Drivers should be called "People that will sell you marked up ice cream and possibly a human organ." They are so scary!

That's all I can think of for today. But I'm glad to have gotten that off my chest.

“Shoe”ing Away My Pride…

2011-11-03T09:26:00.001-05:00

This blog post has been on my heart, or rather, my heels for while. So much so that I have been thought-piling about it. Thought piling- when you pile up all your thoughts so as to spare your words for just the right moment henceforth concocting just the right message. I don’t do this often. I have word-lava spilling out of me at all times.

Recently, my soul took a humbling. I got a size 8 (yes, really) smackdown. Girls, I had to give away all my flip flops (if you live in Texas you can understand the magnitude of this decision), all my heels (if you are a female you can understand the magnitude of this decision), all my platforms/wedges save one pair – these were the hardest for me to part with. Wedges are my go to. They are my eber-kenegdo of shoes. My only way to see what people of average height experience.

Let me let you in on a little secret I’ve been withholding- my hip(s) have been hurting again. I can feel them weakening. But it’s not nearly like the No-Walk-Fest of 2010- so thankful. But still it was enough to make me breakdown and let go of an image that us girls cling to dearly: SHOES. I’m more of a purse-girl really, but dang, when you have to giveaway all your pretty shoes at 30 years old because your hips aren’t connected well with connective tissue that just does something to your feminine ego.

So I realized: “Gillian, you can’t be wearing 3in+platforms and be complaining about my hip hurts.” I had to be sensible. I had to go to Naturalizer. I have to choose sensible over fashionable and I had to not cry at the Naturalizer store. Can I tell you that this was a test? I don’t know if I passed or failed. But it was testing. Especially when I was looking for 3 pairs of my new life- I mean- shoes and there was the sweetest mother/daughter pair looking at the same shoes I was. The problem: THE MOTHER WAS 90, USING A WALKER AND THE DAUGHTER WAS SHOWING HER MY SHOES. MINE. I was looking at the same ones. Techinically, at that point they still belonged to Naturalizer and they weren’t mine at all.

Please hear my heartcries I was having that day in the Naturalizer Store:

I wanted to yell out: REALLY! COME ON!! YES THOSE ARE WAAAAAAY TOO YOUNG FOR YOU- LET ME SAVE YOU THE TROUBLE AND PROVIDE YOU WITH MY OPINION!!

So. Much. Pride.

STOP TOUCHING/LOOKING THROUGH YOUR CATARACTS at MY SOON TO BE SHOES!

Oh wait, I’ve had cataracts too.

Oh wait, I couldn’t walk either last year. Oh wait, you are so precious and I’m sorry.

You see, my pride is being killed off and I don’t like it.

And I think it’s beautiful that your daughter is so lovely to take you shopping.

I am going through this alone because no other 30 year old has to do this.

Oh but wait, I’m so thankful I CAN buy 3 pairs of shoes (yes emergency shoes budget-wise). How dare I complain about buying shoes. I hate my ugliness sometimes.

Dang it- more pride killing. Why doesn’t all my pride just die at once to spare me future uncomfortableness. DON’T I HAVE ENOUGH DEPTH ALREADY?

I’m so thankful I’m not in a Dr’s office right now.

My pride was singed off pretty brutally that day. My vanity had to get smushed in Naturalizer. Once again, I learned it just doesn’t matter. So what. People, I’m 5’1”. I’m not 5’3.1475” like I’d like you to think. My legs are not Giselle-length. You’re just going to have to love me or not how I am Naturally. God does, so there!

Oh and those are the 3 pairs I picked out. It’s kind of nice and freeing not having to choose through 30 pairs of shoes everyday. The Leopard had to be done to salvage my soul.

And about the whole question people ask: “Well what if that crippling pain comes back?” “What about having more eye surgeries?” Don’t let my seemed courage fool you- I continually ask that. That’s called worry though and it’s the opposite of faith.

And the answer really is: So what? So. I gotta know that God’s already got that covered, answered, healed. I know this is getting lengthy, I personally stopped reading my own post 3 paragraphs ago, but let me just share this.

There’s a Bible study at my church, Joy of Living. We are studying Daniel currently (well Jonah now). And my adorable, precious friend and neighbor, Lisa is a teacher. God uses her in my life in a big way. The Lord shared an amazing truth through her to me the other morning in the form of a lesson entitled: Lessons from the Furnace which was all about Daniel 3 and the story of Meshach, Shadrach, & Abednego. This one part struck me and it ties into my worry/fear over when my body will give out next:

¹⁶ Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. ¹⁷ If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us^[c] from Your Majesty’s hand. ¹⁸ But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

Did you catch that? “But even if He does not…”

Even if He does not heal me instantly. Even if He does not- I will not fear. I will not praise my body working (my gold statue). I will let that fear go. I will give it over and back to Him where that belongs. I just trust.

Frugalicious Friday No.10!! The 3 Gift Rule

2011-10-28T13:20:00.006-05:00

In our family we want to make sure that when it comes to Christmas, we keep Jesus the reason for the season so we 3 Gift It. I got this idea from a great family we know and love but I know where they got the idea from initially:
There's this book, you might have heard of it, it's has tissue paper pages, can be made in Giant Print (if you are like me and have the vision of a winged nocturnal animal), and can be found in every hotel drawer across the world: The Bible. We do this 3 gift rule for our daughter and for each other because Jesus started it. He only got 3 gifts.
Here's how we do it:
The 3 gifts are chosen by the recipient ahead of time- have them make a list and stick to it- or you could have the kid pick 2 that will be from mom and dad or whomever and then one surprise one from Santa. Mom and Dad you need to get 3 also, or one or none or whatever, but make sure you are modeling what you are teaching. Just sayin'.
And DON'T GO CRAZY ON STOCKING STUFFERS! Or else the kid will realize the loophole- STOCKING STUFFERS - and be all, "Oh yeah we get 3, but I'm so getting an I-Touch for my stocking stuffer!" Put some fruit (nature's candy) in that bad boy and real candy and socks (come on you know you like getting socks!).

And I was listening to 89.3 KSBJ today and heard a great idea. If you by any chance know of a family who is having a tough time this Christmas, get your kids in on a little shopping spree for them and leave the gifts at their door, ring the bell and run. Anonymous gifting- what a great tradition, right?

I just loved how well the 3 Gift Rule worked out last year. So much less stress and less guesswork and so great to keep it what it's supposed to be about- Him, the true gift!

Pardon Me While I Gush...

2011-10-26T19:57:00.003-05:00

Today is my hurrrrzband's birthday.
You might remember him from such wonderful anecdotes of:
"John Wheeling Gillian Around Mayo Clinic in a Blizzard"
"John, The Encourager For Gillian When She was Sad About ___________"
or how about from this timeless classic?
"John Helps Gillian Eat Ramen With Both Eyes Shut After Eye Surgery!"
So many wonderful memories have been made with this person I call Johnicles of Narnia. There are not too many men out there that could have made it through this bumpy of a rollercoaster ride. Really, that's not just me saying that! Won't tell you who else verified that truth- hint it rhymes with "sherapist".

I am so very proud to know him, let alone hang out with him on a regular basis.
He is funny.
He is smart.
He is cool.
He is unintentionally and intentionally kind.
He is a softie.
He is a representative of Jesus.
Thank you Lord for this totally wonderful being!
And thanks John for putting up with my absurdities and for always saying yes to an unplanned trip to Walgreens.

Frugalicious Friday No. 9! DIY

2011-10-21T10:27:00.002-05:00

Time to get FROOGY!

Today the tip is, minus the politics this time, DO IT YOURSELF!

With the internet and Hobby Lobby and Lowe’s you need to get courage and believe you don’t have to pay Pottery Barn prices!! You don’t!

Evidence A:

This sweet, sold wood buffet I scored at KCM resale shop for $100. The drawers slide out like butter. I had to make an emergency call to the huzby when I saw it. And I did talk them down on the price. I patron KCM all the time. If they didn’t want to do the deal all they had to say was no.

Check out Pottery Barn’s situation:

Can you guess how much their price is?…..

$1,399.00 BUT you do get a delivery discount so you only have to pay $100.00. Total= $1,500.00. Wow. I had an awesome friend deliver our piece to our house for cookies and because his wife is one of my besties! Thank you Core-Dog! Seriously PB, those are crack-smokin’ prices. I can’t even afford the crack to use that would allow me to spend that much on 1 piece of furniture!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, there is some wear on the buffet. But with the help of this great how to paint your furniture like Pottery Barn tutorial I pinned on pinterest, I plan on DIYing it and have budgeted $20 for paint, primer and degreasing spray. I have some silver spray paint I plan on repainting the hardware with. So I saved: $1,380.00!!!!!!

DIY it. Do it Yo’ Self.

Evidence B: If you know a Handy Dandy…

This summer we had our kid’s bday party and I wanted seating for our guests outside. I utilized the huzby’s handyman skills and implored him to make our picnic table. He did the job for about $140 with some free plans he found on the internet. Just google “patio bench table plans”. NEVER pay for plans on the internet!!!

We wanted a bench because you don’t have to pay for chairs. LISTEN UP CHAIRMAKERS WE ARE ON TO YOU. Chairs add to the cost. They are expensive!!! Whenever you can get away with not paying for matching chairs or benching it- do it!

Whoop there it is.

Home Depot Version:

Home Depot Price: $399.00!!!

Savings: $259.00

So that’s the tip of the day. Use how to tutorials to do things yourself. And budget for your projects.

Hot Mess Story...

2011-10-20T10:32:00.002-05:00

I'm a titch bit high maintenance...
I am dressing up for Halloween early this year as an Undead Mom. Seriously. The sickness must stop. I am about 45 min away from the doc appt where I will show them the inflamed membranes and the doc/PA will look at the meds I'm allergic to (I have a new one to add: Levaquin) she will gasp and then her schooling will come into play. I will then proceed to Targie, where I go when I'm sick and not sick, hit up my fave pharm friends, with popcorn combo already purchased and pick up said meds. I will make sure that I carry my Predisone steroids, benadryl and inhaler so when my body does react I won't get hives that will cause dermatitis again, but just a nice set of plump lips. I have to make sure I take the benadryl quickly so as not to go from Jolie lips to Platypus face. This is my life with a sinus infection. ALWAYS say yes when they offer a shot. It's like they are asking if I'd like to breathe again? YES OXYGEN NEED ME HURT FACE SNARF SNARF HELP.
WARNING: FUNNY, EMBARRASSING SITUATION ALERT!!!!!!!
And it's been fun because my body has kicked in stomach issues with this bug. There is no party in my tummy. There is a crime scene. I had to make THE MOST EMBARRASSING CALL OF MY LIFE the other day to Leelah's school and totally ruin the cred I had built with smiles, brownies and compliments with the office staff in one phone call. Now I'm on the "Diva Mom/Problem Parent" list for sure. Here is how it went:
Me, exasperated sounding: Can I pick my daughter up at 3:30 today since I am ill and cannot wait in the carpool line?
Office Friend: Well we'd prefer if you just pick her up in the car rider line. It goes pretty fast.
UNCOMFORTABLE SILENCE. I have to choose to live a lie or tell the Gosh-honest-this-is-who-I-really-am spastic, low brow and hot mess.... Here goes:
Me: I'm frequenting the bathroom....
YES, I SAID THAT AND I HATE MYSELF BUT I HAD TO. I HAAAAAAAAAAD TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Laugh at my misfortune. Go ahead. Laugh it up. But that is the classiest way I could say that I was having unfortunate stomach troubles requiring numerous bathroom visits and a huge supply of Cottonelle Wet Ones. Come people - you know you've had this happen!!!!! If not first I hate you and secondly get your gallbladder removed and then we'll talk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, better throw on some facial powder and welding mask to hide my ghoulish appearance- it's doctor appt time!

Frugalicious Friday No. 8! (with Politics!)

2011-10-14T13:44:00.005-05:00

First of all, I own that I've been lax (lacks?) in posting. I'd like to say it's because I've been caught up in Autumn and have been apple-bobbing and leaf-hunting with my kid. The truth is I've just been flittering here and there like a flibberdigibit. Some of the flittering has been fun and called for, but some of it has not. That would be the flittering of my brain and laziness that ensues while I'm at home. It's hard to just stop and be focused. Maybe I need to stop drinking sugar- water... Speaking of sugar-water:

This would be a pic of John's parents' home and the hummingbird community they have started. I thought it was pretty awesome. But not as awesome as this picture of one of the funniest people ever made:

He's my huzby. So lay off! I think if he had a feeder it would be full of sunflower seeds and ice cream. Ews. Mine would be queso. Double ews!

WARNING RANT COMING ON....
And I really need to say this: Liberal-biased media and left side folks, please let it be known that I am I guess what you would call a "southerner". I'm a Texan. I'm a Christian and a Creationist. Here is what I am not:
I am not a racist. Far from it.
I do not go around trying to convert people. I leave that up to my God. I just try to live my days showing others the love of Christ, God willing.
I do not worship money or big business. I'm a small business owner myself!
And in terms of intelligence, last time I checked my standardized test scores from long ago, if you must use that for some sort of measure, I'm not an idiot. Neither is my husband, who in my love-biased mind, is a genius and also a creationist. Sidenote: If you are an English teacher or a grammar enthusiast- you should be ever so kind to not comment on how horrible my grammar/punctuation skills are please, thank you!

My ideals are conservative and let me state that I couldn't love and root for the underdog more honestly. My heart for equality is immeasurable. I will not qualify these statements with examples in my attempt to remain humble. So please next time you aim to peg conservatives and Texans as "dumb" and as "hicks" please be able to back that up. I would prefer to not be lumped into either of those categories. Thank you very much and please know that I am thankful we live in a country that is protected by the brave so that we can post our thoughts on what we believe. Oh and we do not all wear hats all year round and ride horses to the grocery store. At one time though I was fortunate enough to own a horse. That was a LOT of work!
RANT OFF.

Let's get frugal!!!
Here's the tip cool cats: Make your own silly fruit tray!!! Don't spend $10-15 purchasing a tray of fruit when you can use a little water and a knife and a miniscule amount of time to make your own fruit tray happen! And in my opinion, it tastes way better!!
Savings: $5 at least and more yummy-ness!

Frugalicious Fridays No. 7!

2011-10-07T07:14:00.006-05:00

We got another Frugalista in the Hizzouse!!
Her name is Jenna, check out her blog go ahead, I will wait.....
and her fam (spoiler alert: they're precious). Her book reviews make me love books even more, which I didn't think was possible.
We met at aTm WHOOP! Well, she is a friend of a friend that became a friend. Love it when that happens! Jenna is a mommy to 3, with no. 4 cutie coming soon in December! Jenna and The Kevs (I just took major liberty in calling him that and now feel a bit sheepish about it!!) are to put it simply: cool folks. They are living life in a frugal fashion and I'm blessed to know them. Another fun fact about Jenna, they took the 3 kiddos to Disneyworld and she walked the parks in a leg cast/brace thingy. NO EXCUSES!!! Bow down to her mom-hood! So glad to have you contribute and preach on sister!:

So Gillian, this one is for you - there's about to be 3 (little) girls in the Grubbs Household, and if they follow in their mother's footsteps, that's going to equal a lot of clogged drains and hairy hairbrushes. I cringed a little bit (or a lot) when I watched Kennedy's first haircut in the "salon" and had to pay $25 for it. Yikes! So, we took the haircutting scissors we bought to use for Colby, and Kevin cut straight across.

Before:

After:

Such a great job! I estimate he cut about 4 inches off, which has really made a difference because now Kennedy is able to brush through her own hair without so many tangles.

We already cut Colby's hair with our own set of $40 clippers, which Kevin bought 10 years ago in college. And Kevin cuts his own hair too.

All in all, let's say:
Kevin's haircut = 3x/month = 3 x 12= 36 x $15 per haircut = $540 per year
Colby's haircut = 1x/month = 1 x 12 = 12 x $10 per haircut = $120 per year
Kennedy's haircut = not per month, but ~6x/year = 6 x $25 per haircut = $150 per year

That is a total savings of $810. I can really get excited about that.

What are your secrets to saving money? I hope to be posting more tips in future Fridays, and I'd love to link your frugal tips.

From Strife to Confidence

2011-10-05T15:05:00.003-05:00

Just letting you in on secrets the Lord is sharing with me on my journey...

Remember when I couldn't walk, couldn't see well either and was heading to Mayo Clinic? Well, I do! Remember when I lost my dad to cancer 3 years ago and then 5 months later lost my ut (uterus)? STOP DON'T GO---- HANG WITH ME!!! I'm sorry. Did I just take you Sadsville, USA? Come back!

My newly found wisdom from the Lord today is this: Who would have thought that the worst things in my life are actually what I'm the proudest in sharing to all who meet me in hopes it will help them in their strifes? Not I! But it's so true. On the other side of all that gloom and terror, let me tell you just last week I got to use what the Lord allowed (possibly a future book title: What the Lord Allowed- love it!) to minister, God-willing, to some precious, beloved sisters. I was actually thankful that I got to use what devestated my heart to repair someone else's. I am taking confidence in the fact that the junk that I have been through is not 'junk' at all but treasure.

Thank you Lord for allowing junk in my life, so you could turn it into treasure. God flipped my heart and I love it! Amen!

Frugalicous Friday No. 6

2011-09-30T08:36:00.000-05:00

What up!
Sweet T- hit it:
I’m back y’all for another Frugalicious Friday! Can I just say that I’m a little excited about my newest find? Well, it’s not MY find. It’s been advertised for a while now, but I’ve just found it at my local Target after weeks of looking for it. Mr.*Clean with Gain scent cleanser.

Now, on to the frugalicious part. Most of the time, you will find these cleansers lined up so pretty on the shelves ready-to-go in their spray bottles. Did you know that when you purchase those cleansers in the prepared spray bottle, you are likely paying for mostly water??? Nearly $3 or more for a mixture of water and a dash of cleanser! But if you go just a tad further down the aisle, you can find the same cleansers in their concentrated form for just a couple of bucks more. So here’s what I’ve been doing for years: I purchased a spray bottle for about $1. I buy the concentrated bottle of cleanser and mix it (myself) with water according to the directions on the back of the bottle. And I have lots of cleanser for a REALLY long time.
An already-prepared spray bottle will get you about 32 ounces of cleanser. The concentrated bottle of cleanser is 40 ounces unprepared. You can do the math (cause I kinda suck at math). It’s an excellent way to save on cleaning products. If a concentrated form is offered, definitely go that route.
It’s a great return on investment!
Happy cleaning everyone!

Just can't wait.

2011-09-28T08:19:00.002-05:00

Dad,
This Sunday I'm going to tell them about how you got to where you are: Heaven. I'm going to tell them as He leads, about you soaring on the wings of eagles. About how you are healed. About how you were healed even though you were terminally ill. I'm going to tell them about the Good News for them. I'm going to tell them about how in one month you had more peace, more joy, more contentment, more humor, more of everything that is good when everything was its worst and your earthly vessel was crumbling and fading away. God constructed a new palace in you while He allowed the other one to be torn down and done away with. They are going to know that there is hope for the loved ones they pray for to know Jesus as their King and their Redeemer. You were redeemed. You are new. You are healed. By His wounds. I love you Dad and I miss you terribly at times. I'm moved to tears over the little things and it's so hard. But with God's power, I will not grow weary. I love you Dad. I love you so much and please know I'm so very glad you made the best decision ever. Please pray for me Dad as I tell the story of your new beginning. Your Daughter, Gillibob.

Frugalicious Friday No. 5!

2011-09-23T08:43:00.005-05:00

This week it's all about knowing your triggers.

Sorry about last week for being such a flaky frugalista on ya.

Still on the whole dining out Corn-Dog-in-a-Perry's mentality inspired by Sweet T, I have a problem I need to admit. I suffer from ABF Syndrome. When it comes to eating, any meal, I feel I must Always Be Fancy. I can't just do a sandwich when I need to. If I do intake a sandwich, that sandwich needs to be heated most of the time. God has worked on my heart in recent because I did have a sandwich this week and it was kind of glorious. But it was at a friend's house. Why does friend food always taste better?

Knowing that I have this need to put-on-the-dog when it comes to meals helps me to be aware of where I'm most likely to stumble with budgeting. I don't know why I think like a death row inmate about meals. It's a problem that I've learned is sort of a trigger. I've found freedom from it though and have learned I have triggers. So that is what I'm writing about today.

KNOW. YOUR. TRIGGERS.
Makeup- always buying that lip gloss on a spur of the moment trip to Walgreens and then you take it home to find out you have yet another tawny/coffee/neutral shade to add to your stockpile? I mean, when the apocalypse comes and it's coming (sarcasm warning) your lips will be fiercely beautiful, but STOP THAT! Take an inventory. No more lip gloss!
No more earrings!
No more boyfriend tees from Targie!
No more monkeys jumping on the bed!
A trigger for me and a lot of other women if they are honest:
Home Decor Beautifying...
Don't let Ross, TJ Maxx, and bargain places fool you: You are still spending money and I'm going to bet you it's on another home decor item you don't need!! I say this out of love: flip flop things around your house for that desired effect. I know, I'm a genius from Obvious-ville, but really employ those tactics you read in the mags or see on HGTV.
It's just like my homeslice told me when I lamented about my fake flower collection at my house: "It's not like Nate Berkus is coming to your house." Yes, he can afford the real thing. Him and Oprah probably go on floral jaunts together through the Parisian countryside on matching mopeds- but we can't right now!!!
I'm going to say something to really polarize the audience of 3 that reads this: Be a Wealthy-Neighborhood-Curb-Fairy. Let me break that down, some neighborhoods I'm not going to name names, Rinco Canch, cannot have garage sales. So those folks put out their nice stuff on the curb. You pick that mess up and reuse it for glory sister!
As one of the smallest home-owners in said neighborhood, it's amazing how well my eyes can work when I want to be a Curb-Fairy. Case in Point:
Mirror I curb-fairy'ed and spray painted along with several thrift store finds:

Stand I curb-fairy'ed and spray painted now serving a purpose:

Am I saying to stop having fun this instant? No. Do I have any position of authority? No. But, I struggle with this stuff. Sometimes you just need to eat a sandwich, use that lip gloss you already have, or do a little home decor scavenger hunt for treasures unseen. Until you can live like no one else!

Another apology about this simple stuff. Consider this a pep talk!

Donuts are Cool.

2011-09-22T09:06:00.002-05:00

Much More Uptrodden...

2011-09-19T08:34:00.004-05:00

Don't you love the freedom to completely make up your own words? I wanted this post to be about how the Lord has helped me traverse through downtroddenness to become much more "uptrodden". After, I'm done writing this post I plan on contacting Webster's. But really, this is for the women out there that are struggling with everyone having a child when you cannot or when God says 'not yet my child'.

So this past spring I was tore up, excuse me, toe' up with grief over processing my inability to have more kiddos. If you know me, I pretty much love every child ever made. They are more fun than a barrel of monkeys filled with ice cream going down a water slide made of bubbles in the land of Care-A-Lot. Their innocence and sweetness are unparalelled at times. Anyhoo, so I was sad, downcast and downtrodden and maybe, dare I say, a bitter Betty.

Did I mention that during the spring I had over 20 friends that were/are pregnant? Praise Jesus for these sweet blessings!! It was weird because I truly, truly was excited for them but at the same time felt as if my heart was being pulverized with several miniature sledge-o-matics all at once. The enemy even tried to get me to stop going around all these dear pregnant women. That's how he works you know, isolation.

I don't know why, but the Holy Spirit sure did, I just decided one day to write out a list of all the pregnant women I knew. I even titled it, "Pregsies". And then, God told me to pray over this list. Turning point. As soon as I started praying over this list something funny happened (well maybe more hormones started getting right) but I was becoming less bitter and more content and then even feeling like I was a shepherd. I began to seek out the pregsies to let them know I was praying for them. It became a little teeny ministry that only the Lord and I knew about and I felt better.

Simultaneously, I was involved in this amazing- real word amazing not Bachelor show overused word amazing- Bible study class- Spirit Hunger- by the gifted author and teacher and listener of Jesus, Gari Meacham, and Gari was speaking about the scripture about Hannah who was also toe' up about her babylessness, seen here in 1 Samuel 1:15-16-
“I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the LORD. 16 Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.”
But then she confronted the Lord about her grief and then, lo and behold, "...her face was no longer downcast." - 1 Samuel 1:18.

By the way, I'm more than thankful for God bringing Gari and His teachings into my life. You guys have got to check her ministry out: Truly Fed Ministries. She is currently writing her next book, Spirit Hunger and God is using her to bless so many.

So back to my story, after praying for these dear friends with sincere joy that the Lord had to muster up in me, I was no longer downcast too. My grief was replaced with happily expecting for these expecting women and waiting with them to meet their new little lovelies.

My prayer is that you sweet women who know this grief and pain would also know that God can restore your heart with joy. He can rebuild that garden and cultivate your heart. You are just as beautiful as those women with babies. You are just as much a woman. You are precious in His sight and He is going to work it all out! And hey, you might be a mom to spiritual children you didn't even realize. Stay strong sister!

How it came to pass...

2011-09-15T08:39:00.003-05:00

Please allow me to apologize for that lackluster title. It will never happen again. Can I blame it on it being Thursday or as it should be called, "The day that gets in the way of Friday!"

Friends, I can't wait to share all that God has been laying on my heart and consequently why I've been blog AWOL. Not that anyone really noticed...

First and foremost, at our church's women's event, Outbreak (must come if you live in Houston, TX!), there was this verse Gari mentioned where Jesus spoke when He rose Lazarus from the dead and I just had to share it:
"Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me; but because of the people standing around I sadi it, so that they may believe that You sent Me."- John 11:41-42
This verse just had my heart cry out as I remembered where I was a year ago, in crazy intense pain and unable to walk but with fresh sight that God had given me in my right eye. I was begging Him for a normal life so I could just clean my house, walk with my daughter to get the mail, drive to Target, and just do normal again. Yesterday, I actually caught myself saying last night how much I had to walk and felt immediately disgusted. I WILL NEVER COMPLAIN ABOUT WALKING AGAIN. And I really hadn't been, but I did get convicted and thought-slapped and rightly so. Praise You Jesus for healing my body, my eyes (for now), and most importantly my soul!

We're getting gazelle-intense again on our finances as the Lord leads and we've been praying. John and I have had Come to Jesus times where we are so fed up and yet, so convicted about wanting to do better when some just want to eat! Lord, forgive us! We want to be a blessing so badly to others, but we have to first get our family in check. And then God gave me a new assignment which has actually been written on my heart since I was born: CREATE AND BE WHO I MADE YOU TO BE! Okay, so go and get out my Mod-Podge? I was still not getting it. I told God that He would have to practically hit me with a spiritual pan for me to see where He was leading me.

Well, He just became more repetitive which was what I needed.
So I prayed some more and thought, surely this is not for me this idea that I could use my creativity and love for pretty things to help my family's finances? I even pulled the whole un-used marketing degree card: "But God I have to live in other cities to do advertising oh and I hate the rat race corporate deal anyway!!!" And then it struck me. Make pretty images yourself. And finally, ideas starting flowing in so rapidly I realized God was blessing me with a new adventure. Thus, Adventure Photo & Design has been born. You can check out the photo-adventures I've been having already. I get to creatively photograph kids, families and get this, make ads for small businesses! Whoo-hoo I didn't just get an MRS degree- although that was the best thing about going to aTm, meeting my future hubby.

I was just in such shock though that God could answer prayers like that. Silly rabbit I am! And that all prayers are important to Him. He treasures them all. From my PLEASE LET ME WALK to my please let us fix our shower! I mean, don't get me wrong here, from the beginning this has all been and I pray it continues to be all about GOD'S PLANS, GOD'S WILL AND HIS LEAD! I don't want anything to do with my own glory, but His alone. So that's it. I've been wanting to write about this for a while and I don't know if it makes any sense at all. But I do know that God gives you crazy-joy when you are in alignment with His will and when I was taking pics and editing them to create art, my heart skipped beats with joy! I can't even tell you how much fun I think it is. Thank you Jesus for being so in love with us that you give us what we love to do!

Frugalicious Friday No.4

2011-09-09T08:30:00.002-05:00

Tina the valiant conqueror of gourmet kid’s meals… I will let her explain…

I Took a Corn Dog to Perry’s

Oh, yes I did! For those of you who don’t know, Perry’s is a fancy, schmancy steakhouse in our metro area. I mean, they have this giant glass-encased pillar of wines with those ladies that go get them all “Mission Impossible”-style. I think Stephen Spielberg must have designed it. Anyways, Cory and I have never been there at night, but we have taken advantage of lunch there on a couple of Fridays. See, they have a fabulous deal on Fridays: $11.95 pork chop. And it is goo—ooo—oood! It’s fancy y’all. They bring it to your table and slice it for you in three different sections. One section is meant to be eaten alone, the next is supposed to be eaten with the garlic potatoes, and the final is with their homemade applesauce. I’d say that this is absolutely one way to eat fancy on a budget: Partake of the menu at lunch! (And most places offer a lunch menu or half portion prices if you order before 4 pm.)

So here’s the scenario for the first trip to Perry’s: I decide on a whim that I am going to go pick up Cory from work so we can have a family lunch. We decide to go to Perry’s. The kiddo DOES NOT EAT enough to justify purchasing a restaurant kid’s meal…never has. So we usually pack her a meal from home. But this is spur of the moment. I can’t go home to make a PBJ for her! There’s no time for her to eat beforehand from McD’s. THERE’S NO TIME! So what do we do? We go through Sonic and get her a corn dog. We throw caution at the wind and be-bop ourselves up in all the fanciness with a greasy Sonic bag of tatertot goodness. The server for our table was so nice! We asked him, straight up, “is it okay that we have this in here because she doesn’t eat anything on your kid’s menu (hello $8 spaghetti!), and this will keep her quiet. He was cool with it. So there we sat, with our juicy, delicious pork chops. And there the kiddo is with her delicious (to her), pork-ish (heavy on the “ish”) corn dog. It was a win-win lunch for us!

Now, I realize this effort to refrain from restaurant kid’s meals is not ideal for most people. It’s just easier to order something. But, if you plan ahead and make a little time for it, most restaurants don’t mind that you’ve brought something from home (or Sonic) for your kid to eat. We haven’t found one yet! For multiple kids that are little, most of you probably already know to share one kids meal between two of your munchkins. I have several friends that do that. Or they just share their own adult meals with their kids. Happy kids, happy parents, happy wallet!

So next time you’ve got a hankering for something fancy to eat, BE WEIRD!!! Go there for lunch and take a corn dog! Your tummy and your budget will thank you for it!

The Homework Talk…

2011-09-08T09:42:00.003-05:00

Leelah showing off her front and back of her completed homework.

Leelah brought home her very first homework assignment this week. It’s a little handwriting exercise where she had to trace the letter ‘L’ (how convenient!) and then draw pics on the back beginning with the letter L. Wait- stay with me, there is a plan of action here I just have to share!

Here’s the deal. In regards to homework, we have a plan in this house. Thank God for this wisdom (and Pam Thompson’s inspiring "Life on the High Road" speaking series at our church, Second Baptist!).

With the homework in hand I sat Leelah on the couch and got her attention. And then I broke it on down a little somethin’ like this:

Me: “Leelah. Here’s what we are going to do in our house when it comes to homework. Homework is your responsibility. So that means you are in charge of it. Who’s in charge?”

Leelah: “You and Daddy.”

Me: “No, Leelah’s in charge! Repeat- Who’s in charge? (Leelah: Me!) Yes! Now, since you are in charge, Mommy and Daddy will not be reminding you ever to get your homework finished. If you miss the due date, then that is your deal and there will be consequences at school. If you make it in on time, then great! Understand?”

Leelah: “Yes. “ (Wide eyed with the possible idea of power- she’s a lion personality).

Me; “Now since this is your first time, I will explain just one time how due dates work. This says Friday, so when do you have to have it done?”

Leelah: “Friday.”

Me: “No, Thursday. It has to be in your backpack all finished by Thursday so you can turn it in on Friday. This is important. You will have to keep it on your homework desk and only there so as not to lose it. I love you so much and I can’t wait to see you have fun doing your homework and learning! You are going to do a great job! Just remember, sometimes you will have to decide to do your homework which is fun instead of movies and playing, okay? Love you!”

And that is verbatim, how it went down. Tomorrow will be the day of discovery for her! We will see how it goes. But as for the completed homework- she was in the middle of watching The Sound of Music (precious moment!) and said, “I don’t want to watch the rest of this I better do my homework now.” And you can just go ahead and change my name to No-Nag-Nellie!!!

I did email her teacher to share the what’s-up explaining our plan. We are trying to get some real-life learning going on around here. And she can’t truly learn to learn if I’m the one forcing it. When she asked, I did help her sound out the letters, but only when she asked and only because the instructions said that was allowed.

And lastly, before you think I’m just Mayor of Bragtown, USA, I was informed via email that Leelah has been requesting a classmate to give her the letters when they are sounding out things: i.e. a mild form of cheating. So we had that fun talk this morning as well as the reminder that there are to be “no boyfriends or marriage proposals” yet. Seems as though she was asked for her hand yesterday. Is Kindergarten the new 5th grade!?!?

So Easy Even an Aggie Can Do It!

2011-09-03T15:20:00.002-05:00

Wait, Longhorns, stay with me please. I won’t go all SEC on you promise!

Did you know that a pig was seen in flight somewhere over Delaware because ThreeNicholsTwoCents got asked to do a product review! Good thing too because I have been waiting to be officially asked for my opinion for 30 years.

Here’s the deal, I would never, ever recommend or review something a mom like me couldn’t afford or use a service that wasn’t all about providing great customer service and ease of use. I just wouldn’t- ew!

The Product & Service: a 14x11 photo to canvas print from EasyCanvasPrints.com and it was really sweet timing, because I have yet to join the print your photos on canvas bandwagon because I am a Frugalicious girl on a budgy.

And here is the finished product!! I happen to think it is gorgeous from a completely unbiased point of view…

Could a Mom afford this? Yes! I did receive a nice discount in exchange to review this, but I checked out that pricing list and I was very surprised at how affordable and how high-quality of an item it was. And y’all know I HEART ART! They have a special going on right now for 25% off of prints and free standard shipping, which if you live in Texas you can thank your lucky stars because it will get to your ranch SUPER FAST. I do not have a ranch and I loathe that condiment…

And the best thing of all about canvas photo printing: NOT HAVING TO BUY A FRAME!!!! NO FRAME NEEDED due to the beautiful canvas image wrapping! That = less money spent!! I’m going to call Mensa and see if there are any openings for smart Aggies…

But how was the service? It was Great! Thanks to Brendan (yes a real, live human helped me!) who answered any question I had through email promptly and courteously.

Yeah, one last thing was it as easy as the name says? Yes! See above title to this post. No lie (Aggies do not lie, cheat or steal nor do they tolerate those who do!), it took me under 10 minutes to order this puppy. And that was with a 5 yr old interruption and dinner preparation happening.

Thanks again to EasyCanvasPrints.com for approaching me and for your beautiful work and great customer service!

Did I mention they are based out of Austin, TX??

Frugalicious Friday No.3

2011-09-02T06:41:00.008-05:00

Welcome to another FRUGALCIOUS FRIDAY!!!
Thanks Tina from The Vining Family, for sharing the real deal last week. I know there was probably a collective "sigh" as people read that and thought, "Now, I feel normal that everyone has had that debt-monkey on their back."

Friends the word is spreading that it's cool to not have debt. Even if getting rid of that debt-monkey leaves you looking a little, can we say unpolished, on the world's terms. That is only because the world is stupid about a lot of stuff.

Now, some have asked us on the down low: What Up With Envelopes? What does a budget meeting look like? So I'm going to break down the system that my husband and I use. It will need to be tweaked to meet your own needs of course! So the tip for this week is a budget meeting and cash envelope how to. And I'm not trying to have this be the Dave Ramsey weekly commercial post. Please come back for tips each Friday!

So here you go. This is the process my family uses (by the Grace of God and the teachings of Dave Ramsey) to achieve a cash budget...
Budget Meeting:
1. The night before payday we (that sweet husby and I whilst Leelah slumbers) both sit down with the budget box: the bills that are due, my planner to know what is coming up like birthdays, dinners out, etc., calculator, envelopes/index cards, and the 2 worksheets.

2. Pray. You've got to have a Come to Jesus moment. You don't have to. But this only works for us with Him on board and in charge. We pray together asking/pleading for God's wisdom to lead us in getting our finances in check.

3. Bi-Weekly Bill Sheet: we use the bill worksheet to add up all our bills that we can think of like electricity, gas, etc. AND we try to estimate gas (took a while to get down) since that will come out on the check card, church tithing, John's student loan, netflix- stuff that gets debited out during the pay period.

4. Blank Envelope sheet we use this to help with our envelopes which for us are actually index cards we write the amounts down on in my cool red expanding wallet (Forever 21- $7.00- they also have them at Hobby Lobby now):
Don't judge or rob me please!! Although I do have a Croc Dundee knife in my car for any robbery attempts because I'm a mom that will cut you...

To really get our cash planned for the next 2 weeks, we consult the planner and actually plan out what cash we will need for that time period. Then I go to the biz-nank and collect my dollar bills y'all. I give them the tally card we make with all the amounts. Because the actual breakdown of denominations is important. God help you if you mess up that up. You must be good at math at that point. I usually cry about it...
I will tell you that Food is groceries-toiletries, cleaning supplies, and sometimes a popcorn combo at Target. I struggle with this category and it's hard to not constantly pull from it. A friend told me this weekend to just divide it in half and leave the half at home for the next week so I wouldn't be tempted. It's hard! We always have the same amount in that one, but we did just increase it to cover the increase in food prices.

I want to give a special shout out to our church. Our old Bible Study class, The Vine, had a Total Money Makeover study and there were couples who are our beloved friends that sat us down and showed us their envelope system. It became cool to get hooked on envelopes. Thank you The Richardson Family for getting our class hooked on this and thanks to the Belue's too! We now have our family tree changed because of this!

And don't get discouraged. It takes a while to get on the same page (if not already) with the husb and get a system that works. But I love the fact that we have a plan now. We're not letting our finances just be whatever they happen to be in the bank account that day and then be all like "Crap! I just overdrew again!!!" That feeling is horrible and scary.
Now if that isn't real, I don't know what is! Have we not all done this? Please just say yes. I can't tell if I'm embarrassed or hot flashing as I type this!!!

And please- comment with tips that work for you! We are all in this together! May God bless you on your endeavors to live like no one else!!

What's a Mom to Do?

2011-08-30T20:20:00.009-05:00

These are Bon-Bons. And no, I can't do this.
No, really I'm seriously asking you: WHAT DO I DO NOW?
Wasn't there a 30 Rock episode where Tina Fey hung out with a bunch of stay at home moms who had a fight club? Maybe I should check the Cinco Ranch Newsletter for a Stay at Home Mothers' Fight Club announcement?

I don't know what to do with this new found freedom, and don't be all snarky, "Oh at least you have free time!!" You all know I'd like more children. It's not like I'm waving my one-child flag high (although I do love that one-child!). But it's been an adjustment. And again, I'm not complaining, I'm seriously trying to figure out what to do with my bad self. So my comrade and I have been doing stuff to fill the empty. And that has been crazy fun. We painted my china cabinet to cheer it up a little...

after:

This picture is showing garish-yellow, but it is actually more of what I've been calling: "rich people yellow" aka "gold".
I also had the idea to surprise our hubbies with a "Devil Wears Prada Lunch" where we just straight up take them a steak. Maybe not from Smith & Wollinsky, but from Outback (See aforementioned "Frugalcious Friday").
And to go to an Art Museum. I heart art. Period.
We also went to my eye doctor. He told me my left eye is still dislocated- the lens implant- but to wait until it gets worse. So that was cool. And he loved meeting my buddy, Tina.

And why did I have to get all convicted and get rid of cable- even local!!!???! Now I have to tv tray it up in my bedroom and watch lunch on my vanity chair by myself. I don't want to be alone at the dining room table. That is tears-fodder. I don't want to cry in my 2 plates of nachos. So I netflix stream it. Or sometimes skip lunch altogether.

And I never realized how playdate-dependent I was. No more playdates. What?

And now, in terms of cleaning, it's serious. No more, "Leelah has been ____ all day so I didn't clean." No kid-scuse. So it's do your job or get a job. And lately the sink is looking very pre-hoarderish.

And volunteering. I'm going for the un-glam positions that aren't all showy. I LOVE helping out during cafeteria time. It's like Kindergarten Cop funny the entire time. Love it. I actually asked a girl if she was serious when she asked for mayo. Ew. I got it for her and tried to smile while I cut it open. All of Heaven laughed that day because I'm founder of the Facebook group: "I hate c.w.s's= creamy white sauces" Come join us!

But I don't want to be all up in Leelah's business at her school. So I'm trying to behind the scenes help as best as I can. While learning all the hierarchy and system in's and out's of public schools and the PTA. I'm nowhere near fitting in with the crowd- see proof:

(Note: Yukon, Longhorn, Marathon runner and Me: Honda, Aggie, 0.0, and handicap) This picture sums it up.
And I have learned that the more kids you have, the more you are taken seriously as a mom. I was pouring coffee at the Tears and Cheers PTA event and the bottom of the Starbucks box fell out. I KEPT ON POURING. I was so mongoose-fierce-intent on getting my coffee (the one true friend there) that I couldn't stop. It was embarrassing- big surprise. I put a plate under it and kept on. Decaf- why bother!!!!!!!!? Did Chuck Norris use that box prior to me? ! !?

Oh and I put this thing together. It came apart one time and hit me in the chin. But it was worth it.

And picking up this sweetie is what I look forward to in the carpool line...

Frugalicious Friday- No. 2!

2011-08-26T08:00:00.004-05:00

This here's my buddy bud, Tina from The Vining Family. She's my comrade in all things: fun, sad, happy, glad, sassy, gassy, classy, fashion, dreckitude, pottytraining, lil' kid drama, and so on and so forth! We can window shop like it's hot all day long and you would not believe the stuff we've seen at a thrift store... I need to round this up as there is really no end... So here's her family's story of financial freedom!

Hey y’all! My name is Tina, and I’m delighted that Gillian has asked me to share postings from time to time on Frugalicious Fridays. My husband and I have been married for nearly 13 years, and 5 years ago, God gave us a most precious miracle, our daughter. Before I get to share some of my frugalicious tidbits on this blog, I thought I’d share my and my husband’s financial struggles and freedoms. Here we go:
When Cory and I married, we both brought debt into the marriage with us… the usual car payment, truck payment, and credit cards. Never did it occur to us that debt was a bad thing. Buy something, and you can pay for it later. Instant gratification! If there was a store out there I frequented, I had their store card. Even a couple of catalog cards. We’d been blinded by the shiny stack of credit cards that peered at us in our wallets—something that society had taught us was sort of a status symbol. Twisted, I know. Then, the inevitable happened. It all caught up with us. We worked second jobs to pay down some of our debt. We were in a somewhat better place, but weren’t out of the woods. Enter, Dave Ramsey and The Total Money Makeover. Changed. Our. Lives. See, we’d spent years paying the “stupid tax” of our own decisions and consequently we would end up paying for those decisions for years and years if we didn’t change our way of living.
Proverbs 22:7 “…the borrower is slave to the lender.”

This post is complete honesty. It hasn’t been the prettiest of roses. (Even Bret Michaels taught us about those thorns.) We worked our tails off to pay down our debt. It was a slow process, and there were times when we got a major “F” in budgeting. But we were determined to the take the “F” out of our “failure” and instead put it back in “freedom”! With God’s guidance and provision we’d been awakened to the feeling of no longer wanting to be a slave to the lender. And here we are today-- NO CREDIT CARDS! With the exception of my reliable vehicle (I do travel a lot with my kiddo) and our house, if we don’t have the cash to pay for it, then we don’t buy it. We don’t live beyond our means. Weird??? Maybe according to worldy standards. Budget? Some would say, “what’s that?” Making our money work for us? “HUH???” Praise be to God for these life lessons!!! It’s cool to “live like no one else”!

Now, does this make me an expert on being frugal? No. But I sure do like to save money any.where.I.can. Will everything I share be a light bulb moment for everyone? No, some things you may already know and be like “duh”. Can this occasional posting provide motivation for others to find frugal living to be fun? I hope so. Do I like asking and answering my own questions? Apparently, yes.
Soooo, thanks to Gillian for asking me to contribute to her fabulous blog! Happy frugalicious living everyone!

Next week we're throwing some tips in your face. Tips that you can use (or look down upon) shamelessly!

Stuff I Wish Someone Had Told Me...

2011-08-24T11:22:00.004-05:00

This is a list of junk I had to figure out the hard way...

1. That turd is actually not a bad word. At least, not in my friend circles!

2. That the quietness I wanted for so long is actually going to be the thing you hate when your kid(s) go to school! Shut up quiet!

3. Don't get a Wall Street Journal subscription in college. It won't make you smarter.

4. Those frozen pies, while seemingly convenient, actually take hours to make. Why are you frozen then pies!?

5. Never wear grey on a hot day or to the gym, especially in shorts-form.

6. Having your only child go to their first day of school- easy stuff. Having your only child walk in by themselves on the 2nd-3rd day- well just rip my heart out without anesthetic why don't you?!

7. Don't do the whole coupons thing. Just give up. Driving around for deals spends your time and gas. But do keep a Bed, Bath & Beyond coupy in your glove compartment, just in case you find some amazing bra strap holder-together-er thingy.

8. That Jesus is humorous.

9. Talk about grades with your spouse prior to talking to your kids about grades. It will enlighten you to see their stance on A's and B's.... I didn't know A's and B's aren't supposed to be friends!

10. Try being friends with pretty people and not just assume, "Oh Janizabeth she's got enough friends already." Did you like that name? I did.

11. Pretty sure I didn't appreciate all those trips to Disneyworld growing up or Colorado... Now I'm happy to travel to Lowe's.

12. Don't watch HBO when you're 4-18 years old. You will be messed up in the head from watching the non-made-for-TV-version of Robocop.

13. Mushrooms can be enjoyable to eat!

14. Don't put your kid in gymnastics until you get invited to some other kid's gymnastic party. Otherwise you will pay to have your kid sit/lay down on the floor and watch everyone else. And open gym can be like a class to them- they don't need to know!!!

15. If you respect your life, NEVER go to a foam party. I know someone had a baby in that place. All kinds of narsty. NARSTY!!!

16. Sometimes it's okay to just watch Garfield and Friends on your honeymoon. It's also acceptable to fall down the stairs in your honeymoon suite while saying "GOOOOOOD MORNING" to your groom. And why not go to a bingo hall the night before you get married when you're allergic to smoke, thus causing a sinus infection so severe you cough up portugese man-o-war sized loogies in you cruise ship bathroom? I did! All of that. Too much reality for you?

And my homeslice sent me a link to this list today. It's about the same idea. I promise I was thinking of writing this post before I saw this list though. But why not laugh some more, right?

First Day of Kindergaren- All in Pictures!

2011-08-22T20:57:00.001-05:00

Pencil pancakes!!

Frugalcious Friday!! No.1

2011-08-19T14:56:00.006-05:00

Look, I'm trying to save some dough. I'm not claiming to be a genius at this, but frugalicious is my way of life. It's my family's way of life. Ever since we started doing Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover plan we are all about the envelope- cash system, the budget meetings, and trying our best to be what he calls "gazelle intense" about paying off our debt and saving money!

We started the plan 3 years ago and since then we've paid off 7 credit cards. Paid off all the medical debt I've incurred (that'd be about 14 surgeries and countless MRI's) all in cash. Paid for a new roof, a/c, refrigerator, and God willing a new shower all in cash. I'm not bragging- I'm saying thank you Lord that we aren't getting any more debt! We have not gotten any more credit cards (PRAISE!). We have been living off a cash-only budget (well sometimes a check card does happen more than I'd like) which John and I are in cahoots together about.

In fact our communication together about money is my favorite part. We meet every 2 weeks the night before payday. We sit down with our calculator and our budget box and our planner and get after it. Oh and first we pray! We pray for His guidance, His wisdom and thank Him for our provisions! And I'm kind of a froot-loop about showing off my envelope wallet. Kind of like I just got plastic surgery implants or something where I constantly want to show people "LOOK AT THESE!(envelopes)" Sorry I got a little crass there.... You knew that would happen!

Okay so on with it! In this inaugural segment of Frugalicious Friday, I'd like to show something I did to save money. My kid's backpack:

Y'all know I have a lion lover in the house. I googled lion backpacks and all I got was either Lion King circa 1990's cruddyness or Detroit Lions fanwear. Wasn't happening! So she's rocking her $4 dollar backpack, purchased at last year's Labor Day Sale at Old Navy and a $1.99 lion applique from the glorious Hobby Lobby. I ironed that bad boy on and didn't look back. Simple.
Total Cost for school backpack= $6.00 Or just $2.00 if you don't count that I purchased the backpack last year!

You could slap a flower with a bejeweled center on there, a cute button, more applique choices, etc.! Easy.

Oh and just wait for next week. Spoiler alert: I'm bringing in one of my most favorite humans on this planet. And she is a true artist in frugaliciousity! Her phone calls and tidbits have saved our family some huge dollar-dollar-bills y'all! So she will help me co-write this segment. Go ahead get to know her and her skills!

My Ramblings on Grace

2011-08-17T07:46:00.005-05:00

Grace is something the Lord is gently teaching me, and sometimes I get through complete and utter failure. Which makes it all the more needed and sweet I suppose. Here are some precious moments when I messed up and got the opposite of what I deserved:

I went to daycare. Let's just call it what it was. They didn't have fancy "childhood development NAECAEEHACCDEC" names for it back then. It was straight up daycare. And I remember crying like a howler monkey banshee crossbreed every time I got dropped off. It was hard for me to make friends. I didn't know what to do with myself. This didn't get any better until about 4 years ago (Praise Jesus).

I still remember my very first friend: Tick. Tick was the first person that showed me grace. She was at the daycare too. I was 3-4ish. My dad was battling cancer round one and like I said, it was not easy to make pals. I could blame it on being an only child, but I really think it was just the way I'm bent: quirky. So tough times required me to grow up, ASAP.

Tick liked me without words. I don't think she spoke English very well. It didn't matter. She would play with me and smile. We liked blocks. The other kids were just so uggghhh!!! Running around and terrorizing me and others. One day I got in a squirmish and I faintly remember hitting someone with something in defense or straight up intolerance. Then I felt the immense guilt surge. Oh this feeling of guilt would be one that permeated every moment of my life for the next 27 years until I would start to understand the keyword mentioned above: GRACE. Guilt was the tool the enemy used on my soul day in and day out.

Anyways, back to my bad decision of the smashing a kid. So I smashed the kid and felt sick-awful about it. I mean I didn't bludgeon him or her, but I reacted in anger. Then the teacher told me to go to the principal. I guess they had principals back then in daycare. So I sobbed down the hall to her office. I think it took me 10 minutes to walk 300 ft. I got there and saw a really nice faced older lady. I mean her face glowed like a glow worm. She smiled at me. SMILED. Then she said, "Gillian, do you need a hug?" (I'm tryping- cry-typing as I write). And she proceeded to show me a second, engrained dose of GRACE. I ate that hug up and never, ever forgot it obviously.

I have a besty that I met at Walgreens in middle school. She was yelling for her dad on one aisle and I was on another. 'PAPA!' 'PAPA!' I thought it was funny she was calling him that and I don't remember why, but I jumped around the corner and yelled, 'BABUSHKA!!!' to her. We were 2 peas from then on. I love her and her family. I remember always being welcome at her house. Always seeing a family that loved with ease. Then one day when we were grown up, I did something stupid. Well, I was a fool to her many times before that. I acted on some bad advice, didn't matter because I was the one that acted on it from a trusted family member. I reacted. A thing one tends to do when they aren't walking with Jesus. Do you know what? This super friend showed me some more of that perfect word, GRACE. She wiped the slate clean when she could have held that grudge. I love you Babushka and thank you for the GRACE.

We love to host sweet middle-school age kids from China through our church home, Second Baptist- West. We were hosting two sweet girls and showed them the glory of Hobby Lobby. One of them accidentally broke a crystal cross immediately after she paid for it. She was shaken and about in tears when the sweet cashier told her to get another one. Rose did and I tried to pay for it- not letting Rose attempt to. The cashier told her to just take it without payment. That my friends is our word, GRACE. Beautiful, right?

Only because I've experienced the ultimate favor of GRACE with Jesus and these above do I now know how to apply it to others. Thank you God for this!

Will you please do yourself and others a favor and show some GRACE today to someone? It could be that dude at McD's that's sour faced and slow moving or that crazy mom with hot flashes in the Ross check out line, but please try it out! Warning: it's addicting.

Party of Five

2011-08-15T06:54:00.009-05:00

(Teaser Photo to keep you reading all the way through...)

Hello to you! This is Gillian's skeleton writing since her skin/cells/fat/muscle/organ/tissues have incinerated due to her hormone imbalance thus causing something known as, "hot flashes" in Texas summer heat. You can call me "skelly". What's it like just being a skeleton you ask? Well, I don't like to sit in bleachers because it hurts my pelvis. And I have to only shop in the Halloween aisle, which makes purchasing milk a problem...

That's all I got. Hope a little laugh creeped out for you. I did come up with that whilst not sleeping, so if I bombed I'm going to blame the lack of sleep or the hormone imbalance. By the way, I'm off the plant stuff. I went crawling back to my old lady doc and begged her for the synthetics. I even said, "I'm in a bad way!" The natural stuff is great if you have tons of dollar bills to spend on the saliva tests and the meds, but I didn't have time or cash to play around with that! I've got 3 weeks to get back to "normal" on my new spray which should work better than pills. As the NP said, your body has no idea really what is plant based and what is synthetic. I don't know which side I believe, but for now I'm sticking to the fake stuff. What kind of psycho changes their hormone replacement therapy in 100 degree plus heat!? That'd be me.

So on to the cute one. Leelah had her 5th birthday last month! We try alternate between friend parties and family parties each year. This year was a friend party, meaning she could invite her buds. We told her to pick only 5, plus one to grow on and then her cuzzy, Ryan of course!

Here's how the theme picking went down....
me: Leelah, what kind of party do you want?
L: A My Little Pony party!
me: Oh so do you want ponies to come that you all could ride? (We had just been to one of those and I was kind of praying no, i.e. aforementioned budget constraints.)
L: No, I just want to decorate with My Little Ponies. That's all.

The simple sweetness of her wanting to just decorate with her ponies melted my heart. I mean there I was trying to extravagant-ize her wishes and she brought me back down to earth. Thank God for that! So she picked out the party colors of pink and purple and we went full steam ahead on the MLP train and kept it simple at our place, like a glorified playdate with all of her precious girlfriends:

We had a jumping in the clouds activity that involved a trampoline complete with a homemade rainbow to create Ponyville:

And I even busted out a cake! A lot of prayers, advice, and shaky hands and it turned out okay (I have an ugly-cake-baking disease):

And boy howdy, she was really determined to blow those candles out. Future-Leelah, please don't be mad at me for posting this and sorry for mommy also talking about her jacked-up hormones. We love you!
We also did pony-crowns, unicorn making and pinata hitting. Which to me, is always fodder for America's Funniest Home Videos! All the parents screaming of "WATCH OUT!" or "BASH IT enter name here" makes me laugh.

And we are sick people. Well, mostly John and his macabre humor! He totally posed this pic with her and what's left of her pony pinata. I think it's hilarious personally... And no, we didn't tell her anything regarding anything Godfather related. Again, Leelah I'm sorry your parents are dorks.

Public, Private, Home, or Juvie!

2011-08-05T16:03:00.003-05:00

Our kid, who got a hold of our camera in secret.... I found them and laughed. Hard. I asked her permission to put these on here.

Am I settled on my blog post about schooling decisions title choice? No. But I need to move on. I guess you could say I was "pun"successful of reaching my pun-every-title-post challenge.

Also unsuccessful at the weekly reading challenge. There! Happy!!? Gloat all you want! I got 3 books in 3 weeks, hey I'm not an editor! But then I slacked with this one: Grace Based Parenting by Tim Kimmel. NOT because it's not fantastic, because it most certainly is. But because it's been kind of nutrageous around here with all the errands and randomness: selling gold, returning recalled turkey, and well, the usual eating cheese.

And before I move on to my blurb about schooling and what I feel God has unveiled and unleashed in my heart, I have to say that having mad, crazy hot flashes when you're 30 in Texas heat is not fun. Let's just say I have had to up the dosage a bit on some hormone levels because I have grown weary of spontaneous combustion. It's a good way to stain your CR-V interior, you know with human carnage, ash, and such.

NOW ON WITH IT!
We are sending our one and only (but are praying about adoption if God should lead us down that path- shhh that's a secret!) Leelah-bug to Kindygarten. This send-off is a big step for us, or just me really. She is going to public school. At the beginning of this year during one of my group therapy sesshes (you know I go there and you know you're jealous!) stuff came out about how I had a rather unpleasant first day experience. I didn't know that was what was producing so much fear in my heart for my sending off my daughter. The whole "DON'T TAKE HER INNOCENCE!!" mindset was a heavy burden to bear. I entertained ideas of maybe private school? To which John declined and I obliged respecting his decision. Well, what about homeschool? A great option, but not the best for my only child who was made to be a ham. Plus, she really needs to learn by being around others to lay off the boss-sauce!

Up until a month ago I felt as if there was a countdown to the apocalypse. Not necessarily the public school thing just the whole idea of releasing her into the wild- public, private, or juvinile detention! And I'm not judging where anyone sends there kid!
My thoughts were all-centered on AUGUST 22ND- JUDGEMENT DAY. And I prayed, prayed, cried, didn't pray, was bitter, prayed, and then finally God spoke to me about His plans for His child:
"Leave her in (public school). I need her there." Whoa.
And instantly, the fear, the sadness was gone.

And then I got convicted in a gentle way of course, but for serious. How dare I assume what happened to me would happen to her? Why am I presumptuously grieving a precious moment - her embarking on an adventure she was born to take?
And that's when the joy started to take over.

Thank you Lord. For filling my heart with joy and excitement. Now, I made sure back when I was in Gloomsville, U.S.A. not to let her know my true heart. I was always thumbs-upping it in front of her and then I'd turn around secretly and make the puke-inducing face to friends. But now I can honestly say that "my face is no longer downcast." - From 1 Samuel 1- great story about waiting and hard times Thank you Gari Meacham, gifted author, teacher and friend, for shedding light and showing the relevance of this hopeful piece of scripture.
So as I was reading Grace Based Parenting, I came across this wonderful paragraph on page 22:

Speaking of fears, if your child attends the public school system, a grace-based family makes it easier for him or her to succeed because you aren't intimidated by the inherent shortcomings inside the public school system. And if you aren't afraid of what's out there, it's a lot easier for your children to thrive apiritually inside the antagonistic environment they might encounter at school.

My whole thought now is this (and John had it first because he's cool like that), she is going to be out in the real world eventually. Why not do her a service and begin it now? It might not be that clear for you. It might be clear your kid should wait to start school, go to a charter school, do unschooling, whatever will set your child(ren) up for success in their adulthood based on how they are made. And God made Leelah sassy for a reason.

So I'm loving the non-downcast look. And praising God for what He has shown me. I don't want to ignite a debate. I'm just thankful to know a little better about the path my child that He has her on, whether I'm for it or against it! And yes, this is subject to change!!

My joyful prayer now is that she will "shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life."- Phlippians 2:14-16

Stuffy Stuff Stuff

2011-08-05T11:54:00.003-05:00

Yes, I will find you Blog! Like the Last of the Mohicans ref? I have so much to say. Fridays are good blogging days.

But alas, there's porkloin in my microwave and the time, the time is now! FOR LUNCH!

A Day of Celebration!!!!

2011-07-26T14:58:00.003-05:00

Today my friends was the day that I got to take all my leftover pain meds, muscle relaxers, and stuff that doctors tried to fix me with back to the pharmacy to be disposed of. And in true, drama queen fashion I chronicled it with a picture because I'm all for commemoration of a BLESSING FROM THE LORD!

(Pic of the BIG celebration today at Target Pharmacy with friends Marci- who lovingly helped fill all my pain meds with a smile, Lily who gave me my popcorn combos everytime with a smile, Trish who also helped with my meds with her smile, and Anthony who always helped me get from my crutches to the wheelchairs with his smile. Bye bye pain meds!)

This is a the kind of post that my fingers can't type as fast I as want them to because my joy is pouring out!

Quick Backstory that friends can pass over for time's sake:
You know I have that freaky-deaky "unspecified" connective tissue disorder that affects my eyes and my body glue right? I'm a proud member of the 10 eye surgeries club and I could not walk for 7 months due to some unexplained swelling in the bone marrow of my hip bone- the femoral neck to be exact. I had pain beginning a looong time ago that got so excruciating it left me in crutches, wheelchairs, bed-ridden, and one time at Mayo Clinic (that's where I got the "unspecified" diagnosis). And tomorrow, July 27th, marks one year from the doc appt where they told John and I that I had a stress fracture in the femoral neck of my hip, which turned out not to be the case.
Fast Forward to the Present:
I no longer am in pain. In February the pain had eased up a great deal, and I started to walk short distances. I started to drive again. And it got better and better. And just this month, a year from when I completely stopped walking, I have felt no pain. Not even when I bend down. I wake up and have to switch gears from anticipating pain to thinking I can just walk out of bed and not hurt. It's more than amazing. I was used to pain before with all the eye surgeries too, so now I basically have a pain free life. Thank you Jesus! So I decided it was time to let go of all the medicines that I had been storing just in case it would come back. The best medicine was the unconditional love I got from all my friends, daughter and husband.

It occured to me that instead of throwing out the drugs you no longer use, you are actually supposed to have them disposed of by your pharmacy that originally dispensed them. Then God gave me the great idea to make a big deal out of this blessing and have all the sweet people that loved on me at Target (intentionally and unintentionally) in on it! Hence, the celebration today. It was so great going to their various posts and collecting them for the picture. I would start out with, "Remember how I used to be in a wheelchair and you helped me ___________________. Well, can you come take a picture with me in the pharmacy? I'm giving back all the meds I no longer need because God healed my body." Here were the answers I got:
"PRAISE GOD!"
"Well, maybe she (other person in concessions) could go with you instead of me." To which I said, "No I want you to be in the picture, you always helped me with my popcorn combos and you are my friend. My name is Gillian by the way!"
"It's a big deal!"
I'm telling you guys that the picture only shows five, but there were LOTS more that didn't work out (I did a no-no in throwing them in the trash) and ones that I took multiple ones of. And let me just say, they were not pain meds they were muscle relaxers. Thankfully, I'm not dealing with an addiction from pain meds because pain killers NEVER WORKED since it was a muscular deal.

So that's the story for today. I think this was a good one. And if you are interested in the flat out phenomenal lesson that I believe God wanted me to learn from the pain then please check out this post.
And if you prayed for us through this trial, please join me in praising Him for your answered prayer! You are a part of this celebration too! We are victorious through Jesus Christ our Healer!

I'm Not Embarrassed...

2011-07-18T14:52:00.004-05:00

John and I, in college, dressed as Abe Lincoln and Napoleon for a Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure date party. We were supposed to dress in togas, but I loathe that. Dude, I totally made those epulets. I'm immensely proud of them. Plus, I'm holding a fake baguette- it's what French people do I think.

If you have ever read any of this mess I call my blog you are aware of the fact that I don't embarrass easily.

You know how you meet a group of people, i.e. in a camp setting, and you have zero information about each other so you play awkward games to make it less awkward? And inevitably the "what's your most embarrassing moment?" question comes up? My standard answer is: "Does everyday count?" I'm a walking punchline, but hopefully with endearing qualities.

WHERE THE CRAP AM I GOING WITH THIS? No, really, I just internally posed this question to myself.

Today we were driving 2 teenage boys from China to our church; which every year puts on this fantastic American Exposure (that word makes me think of extreme, Alive coldness and or nakedness but whatever) Program where we host students and basically show them the love of Jesus and what being American is all about. Honestly, it's the first time a lot of them have fun. Real, honest to goodness fun. They don't have a word to translate for Fun in Chinese- they just say the word 'interesting'. Which is very interesting to me. For the past 2 years we've hosted girls and I have thoroughly adored it, but this year we are taking a break. Thankfully the Lord has healed my broken body and I'm actually helping to transport students who need rides!!!! My how the tables have turned!!

First of all boys, no matter what age, make me a little nervous even though I'm fluent in the boy language of sci-fi, action movies and bodily humor jokes. So that was happening with the nerves. Then there's sweet Leelah. Leelah apparently doesn't get embarrassed easily either. I don't know if it's her sweet age of 4 (5 on Thursday!!!) or because it's genetic, but you better believe it is precious.

She spoke so much English to them I thought they were going to crack and want to jump out of our CRV whilst in motion. SHE WOULD NOT STOP TALKING about Space Buddies the movie, Pandas, how do you say_______ in Chinese, Compassion International, etc. etc. I started laughing, because dang it I love my kid! But isn't it wonderful that she could just talk about everything and didn't realize that she might be embarrassing herself and then have the guts to think that people want to hear it!!? I want to hear every word, but you know what I mean.

I guess I just like a little bit of unabashedness.

Like John asking the server at Pappa Bros. Steakhouse if they have sweet tea? (In front of Brits no less!).

And our trash-juiced-duct taped bottom to our garbage can we put out front twice a week. It's gross y'all don't even know!

About how I'm working on my hormones and saliva tests- hey if you have questions I'd love to answer them. I'm pioneering natural hormone replacement therapy for 30 year olds. So what!

Or my crazy water aerobicking adventures.

And how about when I was jamming to "Independent Women" by Destiny's Child in my Beetle, windows down, while driving the wrong way on a one-way street in the middle of Texas A&M University?

And you remember all the unbragging posts! Well, I kid myself that anyone remembers anything I write. I don't!

I think the enemy uses embarrassment to keep us down. I know that's not some brilliant take on things, but really. What if we were all just a little more fearless in being ourselves? I mean, I'm not going to be strolling around H.E.B. with crazy shoulder points a la Lady Gaga anytime soon, but I am stopping the assimilating nonsense. And I think God likes to see my attempts at coolness failing into my normal dorkyness daily. I think He is a funny God. I mean He made the quality of funny up, right?

"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”
-Deutoronomy 3:16

Three Letters...

2011-07-14T17:26:00.001-05:00

V.
B.
S.

Book Review: Free Yourself to Love

2011-07-06T20:37:00.005-05:00

A friend of mine, Jen, who has a wonderful blog: I'll Think About That Tomorrow asked me if I would write some book reviews since 1)I made that crazy weekly challenge up for myself and 2) well books are cool! So here you go!
Free Yourself to Love, The Liberating Power of ForgivenessBy Jackie Kendall co-author of Lady in Waiting

This is first book I’ve ever read of Jackie’s, but it won’t be the last. Having had the blessing of meeting her in person at one of our church’s women’s event I have one word to describe her: firecracker. She is a firecracker of a person. Set off to ignite your passion and make you laugh simultaneously, i.e. my kind of people! I even got the chance to tell her, “Thanks for bringing the fun bus!”
After the event was over I was helping out with the book signing table, not really helping but just standing there waiting to help, and I just felt the need to buy this book. Forgiveness has been a sort of pop-up word in my life this year, popping up all over the place when I really thought I was “over it”. Oh Gillian, you’ve got a lot of baggage, but thankfully unforgiveness is not one of them! Or is it? Could that just have been a lie the enemy (for those of you who don’t know the enemy is what Christians use to mean Satan) wants me to believe? He’s so tricky like that and I don’t mean tricky in the ‘my four yr old is so tricky’ sense, but tricky to your ultimate peril.
So I tried to purchase it and wadya know- there weren’t any copies left. As I was lamenting this to Jackie, she mentioned “Even the sample?” “Yes! Oops we sold the one marked Sample!” In short, she actually had the one marked SAMPLE and it was in her purse, and now it’s on my computer desk. I love food samples and now I love book samples.
Reasons I’m glad I read this:
• She brings it all back to the Word. You don’t have a moment where you don’t think her words are aligning with The Word! Love that. There are so many scriptural references I wrote down in my prayer journal and I was so thankful to the Lord for each and every one.
• She is great at putting visuals, thus making it very easy to apply the truth you learn in your life. To demonstrate here’s an excerpt:
In fact, I envision this gigantic warehouse where God stores a bounty of gorgeously wrapped packages of grace just waiting to be delivered to those who are knocked down but not knocked out. … As I described, these bags com in all shapes and sizes, because authentic forgiveness addresses offenses of all shapes and sizes. p. 60
• This book is rich in tools and application and the part that makes the most sense is that it’s coming from a person who has truly forgiven the unforgiveable. She is real folks. Real means relatable.

Summing it Up:
To sum it up I think a sentence from her book states it perfectly on page 168

“Remember, I am like Jesus not when I am perfect, but when I am forgiving.”
Recommend to Friend?
Amen!

Drooling on Purpose. The Post I was Born to Write.

2011-07-01T15:29:00.010-05:00

A couple of days ago my husband got to see me look like this:

Of course he should have known it would turn out like that when we were dating almost 10 years ago...

When we were robbed of first place in college for a Halloween costume contest for our get-up at Slimer and John the Ghostbuster. I don't think I can let that go. That or when I lost the spelling bee to Edward Yeh in fourth grade. Thanks a lot 'rigorous' for being too rigorous for me to spell.

So I had to do a Saliva Test y'all. What you mean you're a normal person reading this and you have hormone making equipment? Allow me to impart (I originally typed 'barf' but want to hold back) some knowledge on you:
I've been having fevers daily since May as well as having some of what I like to call "Teen Wolf" moments of irriability. So I go see a new women doc (I'm too embarrassed to even abbreviate so I just use the term 'women doctor') and I walk in as a hot mess of half cold sweat and half hot sweat and full out crazy Katy lady. Long story short, I end up in some new pharmacy that compounds stuff. I miss you Targie!!! I don't like it already, even though they are perfectly nice, because I can't eat popcorn and Marci isn't there- our pharm friend or "phriend". It's a little too bed panny too. Anydang, I've got a good lather of weirdness happening as I listen to the complete insanity that is a $210-drool-in-a-tube test to gauge my hormones or lack thereof. YOU MEAN I HAVE TO DO WHAT? THE SPIT HAS TO BE FLAT!?!??!! AM I ON CAMERA? Oh laugh it up guardian angels - hope you guys are getting a good laugh at this one!!!
Nice, unassuming lady that deals with this daily: "It usually takes most women 15-20 minutes to do the first tube in the morning. Sometimes, 30 minutes. And don't wear any face creams, change your linens because they have hormones on them (I'm all "what's a linen?"), and that'll be $210 dollars."
Fast forward to the next day.
THE NEXT DAY.....
I haven't slept all night because everytime my mouth even fills up with a miniscule drool I think I have to start the test, look at the clock and then swallow it back down. This happened hourly. It sucked, literally.
I get up finally at 5:45 am thinking, "NO ONE SHALL SEE THIS. NO ONE!!!!!!!" My hair and eyeballs all askew, see ectopia lentis and 10 eye surgeries, I pull out the vinegar and lemon juice as recommended to get the juices flowing and I proceed to try every trick in the book to get my drool rolling. All kinds of crazy positioning and thinking about food I want to eat. Oh wait, I was doing that kind of thinking naturally.
IT TOOK ME AN HOUR. AN HOURRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No kidding. This is my life. John came out to go to our one shower, remember the disastrous attack of the m. bath shower that led to the remo?, and he proceeds to pick up the vinegar and make himself drool. And then comments on how little I've drooled and how easy it is for him. Fantastic. Oh and then he proceeds to ask me questions and gives tips that I've already tried. I am hating life at this point, but also thinking "Gillian, please save the last shred of dignity and cool point you have and DO NOT BLOG THIS." But y'all gotta know how it all went down or took forever to go down in a tube marked "saliva". Also, I learned how much it bothers me that John pronounces it "salava".
Of course, it was a two part exam of awesomeness that had to continue later that night. Nothing too exciting then, it was so mindboggling easy then. So now I've got that frozen in my freezer to drop in a UPS site. Can I tell you that I'm a walking CSI specimen? I have the utmost respect for lab techs now. I've had 22 vials of blood drawn in one day, this spit test, the 24-hr urine test or as I call it the "crutch, crutch, slosh, slosh test" , other unmentionable horrifying things, I mean really. My poor freezer, it never asked for this when it was at Lowe's. Never!!
So reeling it all in, what have I learned. I'm pretty much a walking (most of the time) punchline and I'm cool with that. It's my purpose I do think to share these incredulous things that happen to me daily, weekly for the betterment of others, God willing.
And I wonder why my child says that she is "relaxing" while eating a ring pop and looking at a King Cobra fact sheet.
Goodness gracious.
I'll get the results back and I'll get started on some natural hormones which should do better for me since my body is not responding to synthetic ones. Hopefully there is someone out there that can find this info helpful and maybe a little funny.

World Rocked.

2011-06-22T12:55:00.004-05:00

Last week stunk majorly.
"Stunk" is not adequate to describe the soul-hurts that happened to loved ones last week. So many losses and sadness.

My world got rocked. My little bubble of target, popcorn, and what I thought was sadness got shook up and new priorities got thrown into the mix.

God took some special people home from people I love. He knows best and I'm so thankful they are in the best place, the Kingdom. I can't go into all the details, but at one point, usually when I was driving, my 2 pairs of glasses (yes, I wear 2 at once because I'm that cool) would get fogged up with tears as I would shout in my heart, "Lord your Kingdom come!" That happened several times this past week and weekend. At one point, as I was heart-crying out for one of my sisterfriends, "Lord, not her! Why her!?" I really felt the Lord say to my heart: "Now she will have that much more to speak with me about." I don't know why, but it comforted me. I didn't see anything but goodness in those words.

There is a new daddy with the Daddy in Heaven now. Sadly, it's one of my dearest friend's. Do we say 'sadly' even if it was a graduation into the Kingdom? Yes and no. That's the whole balance and error type thinking of this world, right? It's unnatural and hard, but I will trust You and will continue to pray for my loved ones to feel Your presence and to have Your strength daily.

I'm Challenged.

2011-06-14T06:41:00.003-05:00

So I've mentioned that I challenged myself to read a book a week.

This is me reading Prayer: Does it Really Make a Difference. This is a real living thing called a "Blobfish" NO LIE!!! They exist at crazy deep subsea surfaces. Leelah and John are obsessed with it right now.

Yeah, I got a little perturbed at the book I was reading, Prayer: Does it really make a difference by Phillip Yancey and also got sent into a downward spiral of sadness over it (excuses!), ergo my timeline got a little screwy with it. I ALREADY HAD QUESTIONS. I DON'T WANT TO READ ABOUT MORE QUESTIONS!!!!! I tried y'all. I got to chapter 18 and mentally threw up. As my mom-in-love always says, "There are too many good books out there." Plus, she's a high school librarian! How's that for credibility!?

Back on track now with Jackie Kendall (a firecracker of a person- love her!) and her book: Free Yourself to Love: The Liberating Power of Forgiveness. I've even been asked by a friend to review it on her blog! Which I'm a little over-excited about. So far in a word: inspiring! Yes, it's got some heavy stuff she has dealt with, but so do I and it's put out there with an attempt to get it moving and get towards healing. Not just dropped on the table like a bowl of sadness staring at you (Phillip Yancey!). I'm sorry! I respect him as an author and respect his education, but and period.

Here's some books on my list for the summer:
-Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier(Mom-in-love's rec)
-Overcoming Emotions that Destroy by Chip Ingram (whatever do you mean? I don't have those kind of emotions? Sarcasm on full capacity)
-The Help by Kathryn Stockett
-The Same Kind of Different As Me by Denver Moore and Ron Hall (my Aunt-in-love knows the authors!?!)
-The Mom Factor by Cloud and Townsend
-Maybe a sci-fi book that John would recommend (trying to read some of my friend's favorites)
-Authentic Faith by Gary Thomas
-Truly Fed by Gari Meacham (Thankfully I don't have an eating disorder, but I sure do feel comfortable going to food when I'm sad, happy, mad, bored, etc.)
-Living a Prayer Life by Jennifer Kennedy Dean (Want to get on the JKD bus!)

So I'm open to suggestions here. I don't want to deter anyone from commenting although I think my blog might have some kind of stank on it anyway that deters people naturally, but please don't say Francine Rivers. I've tried. She goes to places I can't go. Places that I don't understand why anyone else would want to go with her.

As far as life stuff. Glurgh. I've been "holy benched" it seems. Not really doing much of anything with a purpose: to grieve. Mainly I just have pity parties. Does that count as grieving? Or I sit around with my arms crossed whining, "But it's summer and I don't wanna grieeeeeve!"

My counselor told me a genius piece of advice: schedule heavy thinking times everyday. Just one time (hr, 30min) a day to journal it all out, cry to God, talk to Him, vent to Him. And then done. Now, my brain always wants to open up the HT time throughout the day, I have to tell it "No! We'll think about this tomorrow!" And write it down if it's just so pressing for retrospection tomorrow. What do you think? Let me tell you, the day I don't have my HT times and let my grieving heart run a marathon all over my brain- is not a good day. Not a good day for anyone in my home sadly. Just thought I'd share!

Taking A Stand

2011-06-07T15:02:00.004-05:00

I have to say it. I am disgusted by the hyper-sexualization of our little girls. As displayed today in clothing options for them

(swimsuit sold at Academy for a SEVEN YEAR OLD by O'Neill), tv show options (J. Lo shaking her stuff on American Idol finale anyone?), movies (that just spell out the title plain as day SEX in the City, Kick-A**), books and magazines listing all the previous as "trends". It makes me sick. I know I'm not new in this viewpoint. I'm just so very sad and assaulted by it that I have to mention it: STOP ATTACKING OUR GIRLS!
One of my very best friends on the earth and, who as God would have it also has a soon to be 5 yr old, I were shopping for swimsuits for our girls today when we saw the above atrocity. You may see that and think what is the big deal? Here's the big deal:
-Put that on your seven year old daughter. Your niece. Your granddaughter. Would you be comfortable taking them to the splashpad or waterpark in that? Still not understanding?
-Think about the girl that can't fit into that, so she's going to start dieting to fit into in time for the next event. And so an eating disorder begins.
-Think about the little girl who sees that and rationalizes that it must be okay because it's displayed front and center above the other options in a store where her best friends shop.
-And if that doesn't do it, think about the little boys who are watching. Think about the not-so-little boys.
Doesn't make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but maybe the truth shouldn't.
This is our world. Thank God we are "not of it". But would you please take a stand with me and at least voice your opinion to people with power: store managers, buyers, corporate offices, swimsuit designers, etc. And mostly to your daughters!!! You look beautiful! You are lovely!
Completely aware of the fact I just soapboxed, lectured, vented, and threw up my morals and beliefs on you. If enough of us do, then maybe this will not be a "trend".

Some "Afters" Around the Nichols Cottage...

2011-06-03T15:41:00.012-05:00

NO, really we have a sign outside our door that says: "The Nichols Cottage". Made with something I found at KCM.

So we took care of that pesky say-nothing wall which is kind of the first little 'hello' you see as you enter into our home...
Before:

After:

John was a MAJOR help with this. Now we just need to add the pictures and it will be complete.
Oh and new curtains! I am in love with their Froot Loopyness.

I did some scrounging for some finds at Katy Christian Ministries resale store. No need to scrounge really, cute things abound there! Like my new mantel topiaries and new fireplace screen thingy.

And I've been mentally crafting this project for a while. It's our little family tree. Also made with some fireplace or umbrella holder thingy I spray painted and made some paper flowers for. But the best part is the leaf pics.

Still working on that shower... We did get the insulation though- yay!
Not really sure what inspired this post. Guess it's a little of what's going on with us lately.
What else is happening...
I've started the Praying Daily for my Husband for the entire month of June Challenge! Day 3- oops need to pray right now! I'm going off of Stormie Omartian's book, Power of a Praying Wife.
And another self-imposed challenge: reading a book a week. I know I'm sick. No really, I'm sick I have a crazy stomach infection I got loads of meds for yesterday. The GI said it was something I ate probably on that vacay where I talked all about the food I was going to eat... Irony. It's a part of my life daily. Like when I left my kid on a bench in a small, contained bookstore only to hear a grown man meowing in a corner nearby her. THE ONE TIME I LEAVE HER BY HERSELF A CRAZY PERSON IS LURKING ABOUT MEOWING. Thank God for that hedge right?

Just Can't Wait to Be King!

2011-05-30T20:12:00.002-05:00

The day of recital finally arrived! And while I was clinching my jaw in anticipation of having to master a bun in a hairnet, Leelah just kept saying, "I JUST WANNA DANCE!!" She rocked it out in my completely unbiased opinion:). Thankful that we had John's family joining us to see it live. And what a show! What a production! It was Dancing Through The Decades- let me tell you, this mom of the 80's and 90's had to hold back from busting out on stage and going completely all "Whoomp there it is" and "This is How We Do It" on everybody. It's a good thing to. I don't wanna bust my hip. Or have an eyeball spring loose. Not a good look!
And I just kept asking questions aloud like, "Is it weird to want to just go up to all the girls and pull them aside individually to tell them how precious and wonderful they are? And to not lose hope?" Would that be weird? I'm saying mostly the jr. high and high school girls. Okay some of the elementary ones too.
Girls, you are preciously made! You shine like a star! Don't grow up too fast! Stop trying to be provocative and just enjoy your kid-ness! Oh how my heart wants them to know the truth. Just saying.

Orange Beach Trippy Trip Trip trip!!

2011-05-21T16:25:00.010-05:00

Thank you Lord for all the wonderful moments of this trip.
The fun to look at hotel:

(Drinking a cup of coffee and looking at our view- I almost thought the rapture had come. Oh wait- that was May 21st!)
The fun to be with people that I love:

The manifestations of brave men and women You created who were determined to protect our freedoms:

The nature You made:

And thankful for the U.S.S. Alabama's concession stand nachos- probably my most fave food of the trip. Not saying the other food wasn't delicious there were standouts: The Original Oyster House's Choc. Chip Peanut Butter Pie, the Shed's ribs, etc. But there were also moments of gluttony that I can't discuss at this time. Spoiler alert! It has to do with a pig's bottom!

I could not shake the feeling of guilt this whole trip. It was so wonderful to be with my family and not in a doctor(s)' office, but I'm so very used to the latter. A little too used to it. So with the Lord's help I'm learning how to remain calm. Kind feel like I'm in the Witness Protection Program a little bit. Going from drama and trauma to "oh drats! I'm late for a picnic!!" A new normal indeed.

We're going on a trip.

2011-05-11T19:53:00.000-05:00

A vacation. I'm a little dumbfounded about it, thankful, excited, but also just in a dazed silly-faced-shock that we are actually taking a trip as a family next week for a week. Just the 3 of us tearing up the beaches of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, AL. This does not happen for us.

We have staycations complete with car wrecks.
Medical Mystery Tours to Mayo Clinic.
Quick little jaunts to Texas places and if we are lucky, Louisiana (last big trip and that was crazy fun!).

My brain is still trying to comprehend the glory of this. Plus, I'll be walking there. What? Walking and on a vacation? I really need to accept this awesomeness.

Oh and the eating. There will be lots of that. Slap me on a cracker with horseradish and cocktail sauce, we're gettin' our seafood on!!!

Good Grief

2011-04-29T15:15:00.004-05:00

I'm going to be brazen and say it, "I'm 30 and I have had a hysterectomy." Did I get rid of all the male readers yet? No? Still some left? Well, you are brave and mighty. What's that? You're my husband- the only man that would keep reading this because you live it? I love you John.

I'm learning that Grief is Good. No, not greed, I said grief!
Lately, I've been emotionally punched in the face by the fact that I can no longer have kids.
It all started this past week with a dental hygeneist's comments to me while I was basically drooling and incapacitated with my mouth fixed open. "I can't imagine having to have a hysterectomy at such a young age. That must be devestating." Whoa lady. You are already scraping all up on my teeth, but you got a little bit of my heart in there too. GEESH.

Due to EXTREME (neon-colors!!) Endometriosis when I was 26, I had to have 1 laproscopic (scrape off) procedure. Then it grew back in 2 weeks. At this time, my sweet doc looked at me and started me down the road of maybe we should just take care of this. We took out the ut (pronounced: "yout" it's a medical term). Then guess what, it came back in 2 weeks again. Then we took out the ov's next.

Why, you ask, did we make this decision instead of sticking with it to pop out more kids (I do have one miracle from the Lord, Leelah-praise!)? There were several reasons:
1. Insane pain in all my membranes. I could not stand up straight. Daily it was awful. I had a 13month old at the time and I could not take care of her.
2. The pregnancy I had with Leelah was rooough. To quote my ob my delivery was "one of the worst deliveries in 25 yrs of his practice". An intern saw it and did NOT come back to the L&D dept. Any expecting ladies out there, I am so sorry if I have alarmed you. Listen up, I'm a freakazoid 2000 and I do not follow suit medically. DO NOT BE AFRAID!!! Really, you are going to do fine!

So now what. Well, until I went to see my counselor- doy, come on you gotta know I go see one: jacked up crazy medical sagas every day, loss of parent, etc., etc., I didn't even realize that I was supposed to grieve something like that. She politely interrupted me to tell me that I had "piggybacked grief".

So now I'm grieving what I should have grieved almost 4 years ago and it's hard. As a wonderful lady advised me, don't worry about trying to be a witness to the world about this. Sometimes you are doing great if you just get out of bed in the morning. Thank God for that advice.

What has helped me grieve this?
1. Seeking wise counsel. Go do it! Throw that stigma in the trash.
2. Crying in front of your kid- it's okay. They need to see you process sadness or else how will they, right?
3. Know your triggers: avoid or guard up when around them. There are well-intentioned, friendly enough people out there that just don't get it. They will say stupid stuff. Yeah, I said stupid. Know what you are going up against if you are stepping out of your bubble. For instance, going to a High School Reunion where people have no clue what you've been through or to your workplace. Pray for grace. You get to practice a lot -and remember that!!! Oh I see Janey Know-Nothing today, so God won't you please give me grace with her? Or bad hearing at least!
Maybe even set a little boundary with that person: "I really don't feel comfortable talking about this dental hygeneist lady!!"
4. Having friends who have "the filter". People that have dealt with similar situations. YOU CAN NOT DO THIS ALONE. No way. Ain't happening. If you feel isolated, that's straight up the enemy, Satan.

I've got to be honest and share that when people complain about having a lot of kids or the kids they have, that is my soul kryptonite. I can't hang. True, I don't understand what it's like to have enough kids to be considered as your own day care. I'm sure I'd be an even hotter mess if I did! God knows what He is doing with me. But this is my trigger that God is working through and I'm thankful for the wisdom He's given me to realize that.

And Grief is Good. Because before it was just denial and ignorance. Soon after grief will come joy and maturity.
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you." James 1:2-5

Obedient Bees, The Musical!

2011-04-28T13:50:00.009-05:00

Disclaimer: the performance was precious, my pictures are atrocious! Ugh.

Leelah "sang her heart out for the Lord!" at her WAMjr (Worship, Arts, Music choir program for our church) program, Obedient Bees. It was sensational!
Come on, kids, bee costumes, a Christian re-mix of "I'm a Believer" by the Monkeys, and kazoo sound effects? Genius. But you know I'm a fan of kids' programs and kids in general- they're funny!!! Here's a post where I broke down all the types of kids and their mannerisms during programs- Christmas Programs Are Hilarious. It's now a proven theory.
Afterwards, we tore up Tutti Frutti.

Oh self-serve yogurt. You'd think I'd be afraid of your HUGE hand sanitizer pumps, but I'm not. Your sneezeguards are beautiful. Your yogurt flow reminds of me of play-doh shape making devices. So nice. OH and I do not have a big ol' tattoo on my right arm, I run into things. I've run into this little decorative letter hook thingy (it's metal and it hurts) 3 TIMES. This last time I swear I damaged tissue. Heavy on the word, "swear". I'm not a machine!! I really should learn and not have huge pokey things to run into at my house. Like doors, corners, tables, etc. Anyone know of a good bubble manufacturer for adults?!

Sharking it up in Water Aerobics Class

2011-04-26T07:04:00.003-05:00

Water aerobics.

Yes, that's what I'm about right now. Many thoughts. Many self-laughs.

Let's begin.

My homeslice asked me how my first splash in the pool at the YMCA went the other day. You see, by the grace of God I am now exercising. How about that? 7 months of no walking and now, exercising!!! Glad to get that praise taken care of first.

Now, let's hear what I told my buddy on how the first day of Hydrotone went:
I t.o.'ed some folks. Namely, the instructor who had the word, 'INSTRUCTOR' printed on her bathing suit. Here's how I ticked off my fellow sharks:
1. My scrunched up face. In school, teachers would actually stop their lesson and point it out. I cannot help my face.
2. My age being, um, substantially less than theirs.
3. My abilities being, um, substantially less than theirs.
4. My whole, "I don't know what we're doing because I'm an Aggie!" smiling attitude.
5. My favorite way to tick off the other water aerobicizers- My lack of peripheral vision which causes me to hit people with my flailing body parts and or equipment.

It's getting better. I'm a little less awkward. The INSTRUCTOR will be literally a kick away from me and I will have to ask, "What do the legs do!?" Little does she know that most of the peeps in there have better eyes than I do!!

Still no invites to Bridge gaming sessions though. And I have yet to figure out how to not wear my glasses. But one of the clan matriarchs did warn me in the locker room to NOT put my swimsuit in the wringer-outter-thingy-dealy. She told me that it would eat it up. She could have let me just mess up my one suit and watched me cry. So I'm thankful for that.
In case you were wondering, there haven't been any Cocoon movie moments or anything. Good thing too. That movie seemed so innocuous- but it ain't! Looking back having immediate access to HBO cable channels has kind of messed me up in the head a little.

Easter with the Nichols Fam

2011-04-25T14:38:00.005-05:00

Favorite parts of Easter 2011 in crazy, nonsensical order because that's our style:

I love this girl.

Helps to have a handy daddy.

You better believe we saw African Cats this weekend. Do you know my kid? Lions are her clinical obsession. It was terrific!! Ain't gonna lie I was more interested in the Cheetah mom than the other animals! It was all about the love of a mother. And animal movies always make me think, "Dang. Animal life is hard." And watching God's handiwork just reaffirmed in my mind what an amazing scientist He is. Scoff all you want, that is my opinion.

We do not have a DLSR and we are doing okay. Really.

That crazy EB hid Leelah's basket in a tree this year!

Pretty much what I've been waiting for all my life: watching my kid play with her cousin- we love you Ryan!

If you can't read her shirt the blue bunny is saying "My butt hurts." The pink bunny is saying, "What?" Love it. Yes, I realize it can be a little vulgar. But it just cracks me up. Thank you Zenia of Modish- your stuff is great!!

Oh and we got some new mulch. That's pretty much the most exciting sentence of all time without exception or hyperbole usage. Kind of makes me want to chant out loud: NEW MULCH! NEW MULCH! NEW MULCH! It made my car smell all bbq-ey.

My most favorite part of Easter- Jesus filling the gap with His light. I totally point and shot this coming home from seeing fam on Easter Sunday.
Thank you Jesus for these moments and for your sacrifice.

'Flush'back- My Most Favorite Post. Ever!

2011-04-20T11:11:00.001-05:00

Hopefully someone gets the title.

Tonight I solo-took Leelah (along with the Vining's and Berkman's) for her very FIRST SKATING TRIP at Mason Road Skating Center, aka: TweenTown U.S.A. Holy Roller Skate- that place was PACKED LIKE A SARDINE CAN with a whole mess of dance rap & Lady "Bogo" - Gaga but that's what Leelah calls her, neon-colored clothes, too-short short wearin' tweenagers. I didn't know if I was team Edward, team Jacob or team Cellulite! It boggled my mind.

Leelah did herself a bit of alright. Now we're a klutz family. We've got the bruises to prove it. All 3 of us are just one, big, accident prone mess. There were 3 main injuries tonight. Stick with me, because this. is. hilarious.

INJURY OF THE FIRST:
Took place while Leelah was just sitting waiting on me to get skates. Some Tweeny accidentally jacks L in the head while skating up the ramp with her bird-skinny arms. She was Okay though.

THE SECOND:
While in the middle of the rink- the land of the skate-walkers- Leelah fell flat with her chest on her walker. Major crying eruption. So I skate her to the bathroom. BIG MISTAKE.

THE THIRD:
Never, ever wear skates to the bathroom with a child also wearing skates. So we get in the stall so I can have a look at her and make sure we don't have to go to the ER for internal bleeding. Then I realize I have to use the facilities. At which point I tell Leelah to move ever so slightly in a stall that is no joke the size of an airplane restroom, what happens? She moves, slips and her entire right arm goes into the thankfully un-used toilet. I'm talking up to the armpit down in the hole. SCREAMFEST 2010 ENSUES. "YUCKY, YUCKY, YUCKEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, EWW EW EWWWWW!!!!" At this point I'm laughing out of sheer terror. Tina is outside the door, like an angel protecting us. We manage to skate out, and practically bathe ourselves in the sink. Leelah was dubbed, "Leelah "The Snake" Nichols" by Cory (Tina's husband).

Priceless.

Kindergarten Readiness...??

2011-04-12T13:14:00.004-05:00

Today was Kindergarten Registration day at Leelah's school. I must admit it might have well as been called, "Put your brave face on day" for me. It didn't help that Leelah had the too-many-morning-cartoon grumpies going on with it. For Leelah it is going to be a whole new adventure and she is going to love the learning and the fun socialization.

From a mom's POV, it's the beginning of the assault on her innocence that plagues me. She's in a pretty, cute, little Target and Popcorn, church friends and rainbows bubble right now. But isn't this thinking just another avenue to WorryTown, U.S.A? I cannot take that path. My worrying about her is basically my distrust in God eating up my brain. She is God's daughter. He's got her. So some horrible things happened to me in school. So what? Welcome to Real Life. And why should I let my past determine her future? I can't "Finding Nemo" her and keep her in the anenome.

One morning in October I woke up with crazed, mongoosed alertness. I needed to pray. Had to do it. And it had to be for Kindergarten. Pretty sure this was Holy Spirit driven as I usually wake up with eyes only for coffee. I said, coffee. I didn't say 'kid', 'husband', 'birds calling', or even 'quiet time'. I SAID COFFEE! (P.S. we're out of creamer and I'm kind of T.O.'ed about it as I like my coffee khaki colored).

Here is an excerpt of my prayer journal that I wrote down with a fury to pray for: Please would you share a comment on what you pray for for Kindergarten readiness??

10/14/10:
Praying For Kindergarten
God, would you please open my ears to your HOly Spirit in terms of scripture I can be praying over her start to school?
Here's what I'd like to pray for Father:
-Her safety (Hedge of protection- to, at and from school)
-Her teacher to be an active Christian (I realize this may not happen. It's okay. It's the real world, out of the bubble. And there are all kinds of people. It's my preference, but my preference is what the Lord wants. Should He want her with someone who is of a different faith, then I must accept that and trust.)
-Her teacher to have a heart for her and for kids.
-For her confidence to be found in Christ- that it would strengthen her.
-THat she'd make good friends from good families. (again Christian if possible).
-For her to enjoy what she's learning
-For her to have fun!
-For her to transition well with the long day, w/the psycho early lunchtime, etc.
-For me to be able to be up at school frequently and walk (ANSWERED PRAYER- PRAISE JESUS!!!)
-to have her innocence protected
- that I as her mother would be emotionally abl eto move on to her next stage and be supportive with Your Word for her- speaking words of life into her heart!
-That John and I would be loving, caring Kindergarten parents
-That Leelah would come to John and me for anything!
-That you would fill us with Your Word and wisdom in dealing with all situations
Please fill us with Your Word. In Jesus' Name, Amen!

Any suggestions? Please!?

Eye Think Not.

2011-04-11T13:24:00.002-05:00

No surgery needed for now! Sigh of relief. Stinky part- I have to "tough it out". It being the pain caused from the suture that is holding my eye and lens together. If that bad boy has anything happen to it (i.e. surgery) that would mean replacing the lens, the lens ring- holder upper, the sutures, etc. That painful suture is the keystone of the eye and if mama stitch ain't happy, ain't nobody happy! I kept asking Dr. H trying to understand long term scenarios and whatnot (you can ask all you want there they are REALLY caring and superb docs) and finally I said, "You can see my trepidation (big word of the day)." To which he smartly replied, "You can see mine!! I don't want to go back in there!!"

I return in a week after some anti-inflammatory drops treatment to hopefully take down that inflammation in the eye. Oh and I had a cute little stitch removed from August that was poking around in the right eye. Just for fun.

I've slowly been shepherded to the realization that it scares the everlovin' be-somethins' outta the docs to operate on my eyes. It's kind of uncharted territory. So I respect what my surgeon says. A respect that has been earned by his many attempts to get my vision stable and from his commitment to my care. And I've been humbled throughout this journey. Which is always good I guess although I do grumble when I'm being humbled.

Here we go again...

2011-04-10T11:50:00.002-05:00

Dudes.
So.
Blurgh.
Let me start over.
"They will have no fear of bad news; their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the LORD." Psalm 112:7.
No fear of bad news.
Steadfast.
Sigh out loud and type...
For a little while I've been seeing some odd things in the left eye. I thought nothing of it, because hey I've had 10 eye surgeries right? I'm good now. Apparently, not. On Friday lefty started up with some pain. For real. It took me a little while to realize what was happening that the left side of my face, no wait, my left eye hurts AND it's seeing weird- better call BAYLOR EYE CLINIC STAT!
So I did and was immediately seen by a retina doc and will always be seen by one because "someone like you" that would be me has to have that go down everytime. Let's face it, your retinas are important. If stuff goes down with them, you have problems!!! Thankfully, they checked out. Thank you Jesus. No endopthalmitis again. Phew. That was scary.
HOWEVER.
The lens implant is acting up and has "shifted thus causing chafing of my iris" ergo, OUCH!!!!!!!!
Dr. Hamill, the "Big Guns" surgeon was unable to see me due to an emergency surgery he had to do- always need to pray for those people! And I was planning on going to see Dr. Lewis, the "flubber smart" detective doc on Monday anyway so now I get to go see both of them Monday morning. At least I was allowed to wait right?
Will post more on what is to come. Really hoping it won't require another surgery- it'd be the full enchilada knock me out kind. But also trusting in the Lord and what He has planned. Thank you for your prayers.

A Little Something Real Last Day...

2011-04-08T07:21:00.002-05:00

All the FB and blog bragging bugged me so I started to un-brag. About halfway through the week I realized even all of my unbrags: out of date technology, laundry-thon house, kids clothes and oversized sunglasses are still what some parts of the world would consider blessings to have and thus, bragging. I felt convicted. Isn't that funny when you think you might, dare I say, teach some folks a little something about realness, you are the one who ends up getting taught. So I guess my realness is about humility. Is it self-righteous to say that you are being humbled? Oh wait, I think a brain cell just burst from that higher level of thinking. Ouch.

Please check out Compassion International if you feel led to learn more about poverty and what you can do to help.

A Little Something Real Day Four...

2011-04-07T07:20:00.002-05:00

In regards to general appearance and or accessorizing...
Un-Brag Day 4: I'm so cool I can wear 2 glasses at one time. I can drive AND shoot guns simultaneously (especially since I'm Texan). I like to wear welding glasses for fashion. The real story: I've had 10 eye surgeries (oops I just real bragged)- lay off! Everyone laughs at first and then once they try them on the laughing stops and then they want a pair. A smaller pair.
I got these bad boys at the Low Vision Center at University of Houston. That was a fun day. Let's take you outside to see how bad you squint. Oh yeah, you squint a lot you must be extremely light sensitive. ReallY!!?!?! Are those medical findings!?!?! I have stupid cataracts and ectopia lentis silly face!!! It's like taking a snowman to a hot coal walk. Come on!!!
That visit was $300 and I was supposed to be borrowing those glasses, but I think it worked out pretty well... But yeah, I wear my BDG's over my prescription glasses when I'm outside and I don't care what people think. Thanks to pioneers like Rachel Zoe, Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie I'm in style!!

A Little Something Real Day Three...

2011-04-06T09:10:00.002-05:00

Un-Brag Day 3: Real Clothing. Leelah picked out this shirt at, prepare yourself, Walmart!!! Gasp! And it has a quasi-character on it!!! Double gasp! AND I let her pick out this outfit AND wear it publicly- to church!! Now you're fanning yourself to keep from passing out I'm sure. But is it so bad to let your kid out in somethink you know will not gain you complements? I gotta be honest, I struggled with this!

Background information:
I LOVE to dress up. I LOVE expressing my personality through clothes. I might be all sci-fi and guy movies, but I love me some rhinestones, costume jewelry (and James Avery!) and frills. But that's me. It's not my kid. As much as I try to make it be, she's a casual tshirt girl. Now, I do think we should adhere to looking our best when place and time calls for it, but I also think this is the only time we get to be kids*.
Again, not trying to preach as I am insufficient in wisdom impartation. But a couple weeks back God spoke to my heart during our Bible Study class (Thanks Mindee!) in this verse from the Message translation:
"If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds." Matthew 6:25-26

And hey, no judgment in regards to how you want to dress your kid.
"Therefore there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus." Romans 8:1.
** That only time we get to be kids is kind of untrue. John has a TMNT shirt he frequents on the weekends.

A Little Something Real Day Two...

2011-04-05T07:07:00.004-05:00

My Un-Brag for today is how we are livin' right now. A snapshot in time in a real household.
I would like to add that all of our laundry was cleaned in efficient for me, top load washer and ol' school drier - circa 2002. They are white and banged up but get the job done. Actually they are John's and the washer says, "soiled linen" on it on a label we put it on there to be funny many years ago. Back when we were into labeling things for comedic effect. Even our labelmaker is labeled. I digress.
I didn't mean for this to be a frugal living segment, but more of a way to show we all have laundry piling up in our homes from time to time- okay maybe a biweekly basis.
Tomorrow we're going to talk real busyness- activities or maybe real clothing. I haven't decided.

A Little Something Real Day One...

2011-04-04T07:24:00.004-05:00

Because I just couldn't stand all the facebook bragging that goes on (myself included), I am going to post something that I like to call "un-bragging" each day this week. In an effort to unite people in their realness. Now here's the deal, bragging on your kids' births, milestones, this and that. All for it. Weddings, engagements, anniversaries- awesome, power to you! Those are things that make facebook great. But the other stuff... Ick. Just my op here.
Not trying to get preachy here. But verse-bragging, glory all to God:
"How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God[a]?"- John 5:44

Before and Afters

2011-03-29T14:38:00.012-05:00

Lot of cha-cha-changes going on around the Nichols' Cottage...

First. I'm going to get real with you. Meet the bane of my existence. THE SHOWER. I wish I could be all techy cool and make the font all drippy- you'll just have to imagine THE SHOWER with drippy font. How many bloggers you know show you undoctored pics of their existence banes, hmph?? I hate you shower. But guess who is winning this battle...

BOOYAH!!!! That just happened. It was bad y'all don't even know. It had mold down to the studs!!! Speaking of studs, John demo'ed it and is going to completely redo the shower himself. It was worth the allergic reaction (my face swole up good) to the mold that lies beneath (at least it's not dead girlfriends -movie reference!!!) to get this puppy demo'ed. John is the man. New shower timeline- 6 months. We're just full of realness around these parts. So we're doing that and a little of this...
Hello! I'm Crazy Confusing Living Room Color here. I'm grey! No,I'm green! No, I'm biege! Who cares! I'm just boring!!!

Meet Much More Pronounced Living Room Color:

Phew.. It's Nostalgia by Valspar. Thank goodness that color identity crisis is over- at least on one wall and we're good with that. Now onto the couch that looks like it was assembled from a massacre of Teddy Ruxpin dolls. Not hating on the color per se, it's just not working anymore for me. We will be doing a more, weimaraner dog color look:

Yes, the couch will be made out of real weimaraners! Who do you think I am Cruella DeVille? Yes, actually I do aspire to have her fashion skills.
We also got our legendary Ol' Smokey back- remember car go boom boom?

Say Hello to this!

What? You saw that coming? Come on. I'm really going to up a pic of a 2005 prison gray corolla on here. I love our Dave Ramsey Car though. Livin' like no one else drivin that car- actually living like 3/4 of Katy, really. Thank God for the knowledge of Dave Ramsey!!! (Told y'all- real here!)

And there's also the whole phoenixing of my mind that is taking place. I'm thankful that God is renewing my mind. If you are interested in totally having your mind blown read further... If not, go have some doritos or something.

I was in a real Why Me? state a couple of Sundays ago when I read this brilliance from Oswald Chambers in his Contemporary Classic Devotions for a Deeper Life. If you aren't down with O.C., you are missing out.

March 12:
But that no one man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith (Gal. 3:11).
God uses symbols in His dealings with us human beings in order to get our attention.... Yet God will sometimes remove symbols of guidance in our lives. Over and over again, God has removed the symbols whereby He has guided His people. And whenever He has done it, some of His followers proved to be wedded to the symbol instead of God. As a result, the loss of a God's symbol wrecked their lives.
When Jesus reinterpreted the Law, what did the Pharisees say? They called Jesus "an impostor" and thought He should be "put to death." They were wedded to their symbols, and not to the Lord.
When you begin to walk with God, He may permit you to walk by sight more than by faith. But after a while, He will begin removing visible symbols and let you tremble. When that happens, you can be sure He is about to teach you how to walk by faith.
Prayer Thought: O, Lord it is easier to walk by sight, but teach me how to walk with You by faith.

The Staycation...

2011-03-22T21:02:00.006-05:00

We needed a break. Oh we got a break! But we'll get to that..
Day 1:
Breakfast at Crescent City Beignets. Yumface.
We zoo'ed it up. Several things about that:
1. Ever since going to the NOLA zoo we are too spoiled and the Houston Zoo kind of pales in comparison. I'm sorry. Plus, IT'S EXPENSIVE. For real. Almost too expensive for popcorn. I said, ALMOST.
2. The African Forest. Here's my take on it. The chimps held a zoo staff member hostage and said, "Look. We are going to start goin' ape on your visitors' faces if we don't get a pin that's waaaay bigger than the orangs- capeesh!!!" (chimps don't know how to spell Italian). Oh and this chimp was sad. Sad because he hadn't eaten any faces that day. I don't like chimps.

Leelah in front of her all time favorite species:

Komodo time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the best quote of that day from Leelah after her and daddy 'accidentally' showed me a pic of the reptile house, "Enjoy your nightmares, Mom."

Day 2:
CAJUN TOWN! the best place you ain't eatin' at!!!
Oh and we then went to MAJOPA= Mary Jo Peckham Park and played free putt putt and then went to the library where we saw this priceless gem:

We sent it into the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon show. We're kinda hoping to hear back in our dreams...
Day 3:
We went to Huntsville to visit Mom and Pop, Aunt Amy and Ryan and Great Gram- this happened as soon as we rolled into town:

Some dude's truck which didn't have brakes we later learned from the tow truck dude smacked Ol' Smokey pretty good. This trip was almost 3 weeks ago and she's still in the shop!!!! Oh Ol' Smokey you should have been totaled!! We had a sweet little ER visit for Leelah on account of her bruised hip- she was A-Okay and laughing in the waiting room. But it did give her a good scare and I'm still not right from it! Thank the Lord for watching over us!!!

Day 4:
Something about bank switching. Hey, every day can't be amazing!

Day 5:
Honestly, I forgot. But I'm pretty sure it involved Barnes and Noble and Chuy's.

But we were so very glad to have John home with us.

Last week I had my 10th eye surgery- I'm just plain bragging now- and it went very well! More posting on that to come soon!

Praise Sweet Jesus

2011-02-27T14:52:00.003-06:00

I can walk again!!!!
Without limping (almost all the time without a limp, but hey I'll take it!)

Good things happening:
1. I can walk again! For the past 2 weeks I've noticed significant improvement in my pain level for my hip. It still hurts every now and then, but NO CRUTCHES, NO WHEELCHAIR! Tomorrow the 28th would have been 7 months of not walking. Can I get a what what!?!?! Thank you Lord for healing me physically and spiritually. My goal was to be walking by the time Leelah started Kindergarten in Sept. So this is just amazing in the truest since of the word. God is just so good, walking or not. I wish I could just go on and on about this moment. But the fact is, God healed me. It's just that simple and complex all at once. I'm thankful!

2. We got a doggy dog!!! Leelah is allergic to: say it with me, "DOGS, CATS, AND JOHNSON GRASS!!!" That was supposed to be said aloud by a huge invisible audience. But we just fell in love with this little darling:

Her name is Boo. We love her. She is a maltipoo which is supposed to by hypoallergenic. We are really praying this will work out for us as we want her to be our forever pet.

3. Staycation!!!!!!!!!!!! We need it. What else can I say. Times have been tough.

On one condition...

2011-02-20T14:23:00.002-06:00

Psalm 119:71
It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.

I really prayed before I wrote this post today.

God has showered me with His grace and understanding this past week. I do mean "showered" in the literal sense, because I had a shower revelation. Moms, know these well with little ones underfoot sometimes your bathroom is your great escape, an ever present fortress of solitude. Or at least it still is for me.

This past July when I became unable to walk due to crazy, sick hip pain, is when I had started to pray for the Lord to show me exactly what unconditional love is and means. I remember praying this about a week before we were to receive our students from China. One of our pastors had explained to us 2 years ago that the best way to witness to others: show them that Jesus-love! Plain and simple.

In my family of origin, unfortunately I feel I received love only due to the degree of my performance. How did this knowledge come to pass- read: The Search for Significance by Robert McGee, but read it only if you want to change! So I knew this hard truth and what was I to do about it? I knew that I believed and, God willing, attempted and attempt to show unconditional love to John and Leelahbug. The whole idea of receiving was where I was just plumb clueless.

A timeline if you will:
Mid-July 2010:My Prayer:

Lord, please help me to get this idea of receiving unconditional love so that I might fully understand why You just love me for no other reason than that I am Yours. Help me to understand this.

Next Week-
Students arrive.
I heard God speak to my heart with the words, "Please know how much I love you."

Same Week-
Insane hip pain began. The doctor MRI's the hip and determined (falsely) that I had a stress fracture in the femoral neck. (this has been ruled out and now determined to be unexplained swelling in the bone marrow of the femoral neck).

From July 2010-Present:
I have had to rely on everyone for all sorts of help: driving me around, watching my kid, many yummy meals, housekeeping, encouragement, going to the store for milk, you name it and Jesus has provided it through my friends. At first, I resisted- wait, wait, I can do stuff!! I got it! No I didn't. Jesus did though.
John has wheeled me all over the country- no kidding! In airports, through blizzards, the Mall of America, etc. To over 20 doctors for answers.
Leelah has had a preschooler's class in anatomy to learn all about how bones work, how MRI's work. She has had so many sweet friends of mine fill in for her and shuttle her around and love her as if she were their own.

I am/was lame. God let me be lame. Lame without any answers really.
All because of this condition is how I learned what unconditional love is and how to receive it.
On this one condition, I have gotten a front row seat at the Jesus Live concert.

This is what He revealed to me this past week. That when you are in the body of Christ, you are loved- period. Doesn't matter what you can give back at that moment. You will get your chance to repay it (as one of my dearest friends always says!)
Thank you Father for this lesson. It was all worth it. Thank you friends for being his teaching instruments.

Before, During and After!

2011-02-16T14:32:00.002-06:00

And oh was there singing:
"My hair got cut off and now it's gonna be a wiiiiiig!"
Thank you to a friend of a friend, that's now a friend's daughter for inspiring us!

Nuthin'

2011-02-12T09:17:00.002-06:00

No Fusion. XRays were incorrect.
No Ehlers-Danlos Testing. The genetics doc didn't feel I was hypermobile enough to warrant it.
No more findings. The MRI's just showed that silly spot of swelling in the bone marrow they always show- nothing else!

A whole lotta nuthin'.

So the genetics doctor said he'd speak with colleagues and get back to me. The rheumatologist said she'd speak with colleagues and get back to me. She said the next step is for me to visit the pain mgmt doc which I will see on Tuesday for the first time.

In the meantime, I'm still hopeful and feeling better. This past week was terrible in terms of pain. But I think with the temps getting warmer, I should be in for a more comfortable time.

So with the news of nuthin', I remain hopeful in the Lord knowing He will sustain me. I'm thankful for this period of perserverance and maturity building.

Fusion and sailboats.

2011-02-09T15:55:00.004-06:00

Yesterday at the grand ol' "Baylo Clinic" the Pops (Father in Love) and I wheeled up to meet the new orthopedic. I think he's number 6 or 7, I've lost count. Good news is he is going to be the guy for me to round out the DOCTOR TEAM to treat my connective tissue issues.
You need a Rheumatologist (freaky, deaky weird stuff docs)- Dr. Bhanusali LOVE HER. I love her! Did I mention that I love her?.
You need an Orthopedic Surgeon, for when you need a joint replacement/hip replacement and I will he says in the not too distant future (I'm thinking at around 40 or so)- Dr. Harrington he says he uses "power tools in surgery!", and you need a A Primary Care Doc (you know for your booger control, i.e. sinuses)- Dr. Chen.
You need an Opthmalogic Team: Dr. Lewis, Dr. Hammil, Dr. Yeu, etc. Baylor Eye Clinic. The best.
So PRAISE the Lord I got them locked down. So the DOCTOR TEAM is complete! I know they are all simultaneously high fiving each other as I speak. GO DOCTOR TEAM!

Oh and did I mention that I'm in HORRENDOUS PAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you have ever read any of my posts you know I'm hip on the whole Phil. 2:14 "Do everything without grumbling or arguing." Or at least I try. But the pain is now getting all Chuck Norris on my body. The worst is at night. I have retreated back to using Tylenol PM and muscle relaxers.

So I had hip xrays done at the orthopedic's. They were nasty. I screamed and cried and screamed again. My poor Pop had to hold me in position and cheer me on. Thank you Pop. Love ya. And guess what, THEY SHOWED SOMETHIN'!! What, a result? Me? They showed the bones are fusing. Fusion. As in, my bones are growing together. What the whaty what what?!? That's not appropriate! My Sacrum (sp?) is fused to my iliac (sp?) spine bone fused to pelvis bone- and let's not forget there's a crazy "nerve nexus" up in there getting all bent out of shape. It's happening on the right side.

Possible diagnosis: Anklyosing Spondylitis (when your back bones start a fusin' to your pelvis bones!) So I got a cute little handout with good looking people water-skiing and sailing, called, "ANKLYOSING SPONDYLITIS: AN OVERVIEW". Awesome! Why is it that people with crazy diseases are the only ones that are extremely active in life? Where's my sailboat?

Today I had a lower back MRI w/contrast- i.e. let's juice you up in an IV while you're in a tube time. It was fun. Monday I had the hips re-MRI'ed since the results are so confusing.

No results yet. I'm good guys, really. It's like that lame dude those people sent through the roof down to Jesus to be healed. He healed him spiritually first! Spiritually healed. Physical healing is a bonus. Meanwhile, I'm back to being besties with my wheelchair and contemplating decorating her in some fashion. She needs a horn for real.

Funny Thoughts in an MRI tube...

2011-02-09T09:38:00.002-06:00

This is my FB status today after my MRI w/contrast of my back:
Thoughts during my date with Mr.I today:1. Wow, I'm so futuristic right now in this MRI tube- would it look like this if I were being cryo-frozen? 2. If I have to choose having coffee breath or having friends, I'd choose the coffee breath. 3. Don't fall asleep and twitch!! 4. What's for dinner? 5. What's for lunch? 6. What's for breakfast tomorrow? 6. You know, having an MRI is kind of like going to the spa.

It's a good thing God gave us senses of humor. Or is that sense of humors? I'm sheepish over my grammar now.

Ahhh Snap!!!

2011-02-03T16:50:00.002-06:00

No really, snap is right. I think I might have snapped my ligament where my hip and thigh meet- anguinal?. It happened Tuesday after Bible Study as I bent down in a squat to put something under the sink- SNAP!!! I felt the part that was one become two and it hurt- BAD. Oh and guess what, it was the LEFT LEG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's the other leg. So now, both legs are toe' up! I have an MRI listed as stat of both hips MOnday. It was supposed to be yesterday, but Texas is freaking out with this storm and the blackouts are a rollin' and they didn't want me to end up stuck in an MRI tube and the power go off. WHich you KNOW would happen to me, for sure. So. I got new medicine to try. I got a crazy penguin walk happening, and I'm honestly in shock. I go see a new ('Baylo' Clinic) orthopedic surgeon first thing Monday and he will read the MRI's at the end of the day. Until then, I am laid up. Which is fine, I get to read and eat my 2 favorite things.

Will update with more info on Gimpgate.

Quick Update

2011-01-30T21:55:00.003-06:00

So one of the muscle relaxers I was taking made me have the pass-out spells in Lupe's. Stopped that.

Started new meds. Don't really like the new stuff. The hip is back to "August Pain" as I call it.

Went to see the rheum. She said the catscan showed the same thing as the MRI. Let me break that down.
MRI Results- "submarrow edema please consult with ct scan"
CTScan Results- "Submarrow edema please consult with MRI findings"
Yep, you read that right. So all of my films, impressions, etc are now in the hands of a, get this, "team of radiologists". They are going to caucus about it and get back with me in a few weeks. Hilarious. I'm not being sarcastic, I really think that is funny. At this point, you have to.

As of Jan. 28th, 2011 I have not been able to walk for 6 months. The pain in the hip feels like it's going to break. And I've had every doctor I've seen- over 20 confirm this is real, no psychosematic business happening.

So the radiologists' summit is one of the ways we're hoping to have a diagnosis.
Number 2, I go see a pain mgmt doc. I'm still leary of this and it will be a new guy, blah, blah, blah.
Number 3, I get my genetics testing done this Friday- BUT WAIT DIDN'T YOU ALREADY GET THAT DONE? Yes. I did at Mayo Clinic in MN. However, they didn't test me for Ehler's Danlos Syndrome. I do have a connective tissue disorder the rheum says, but which one. And has it been named, or better yet, discovered?

Something about my body being "deconditioned" has come up and I have to go have more physical therapy. But I need to have a diagnosis before I can do that? Not really, I can just go PT Lite.

That's what's happening here. Along with all the other life stuff thrown in there, which makes this hop-along stuff bearable.

I feel the prayers every day, all day. Thank you for those. It's pretty cool. Not the hitch in my giddy up, but the prayers-feeling.

My Voyage to the "R.E."

2011-01-20T13:35:00.002-06:00

I have the saddest story to tell you Ms. Mary! (sweet friend and caregiver) This weekend we went to the restaurant and my mom got really sick and she had to be ambulanced to the R.E.!!!

- Leelah, talkin' about this past Sunday.

Yes. I got crazy "my undergarment is now a vice around my back and chest" pains at Lupe's Tortilla. Yes, I had to be ambulanced out of there and taken to the E.R. (R.E. is Leelah's way). No, I had not eaten anything yet- not even ordered!!! Yes, the staff at Lupe's Tortilla on Hwy 6 were champs and helped saved the day. No, I didn't have a heart attack. Yes, I still don't know what the heck happened to my body that day.

It was weird. Weird, slightly embarrassing, and totally dramatic. Since we know I have a connective tissue disorder and we still don't have a name for it (if we ever will is up to the Lord!), we had to be cautious and not pass go on our way to the hospital. Oh and I started to black out at the restaurant. I kept slumping over and my face wouldn't stop twitching. Those poor just wantin' a little family lunch patrons that had to watch me literally spazz out all over the place while pretending to not be watching and also pretend to be concerned and eat salsa all at once. Geesh. They probably thought they were in the taping of ABC's "What would you do?" show. Only one person came up and said something, "You should call the paramedics!" Thanks kind sir. I appreciated that.

We got to check out the new Methodist Hospital in Katy though. Gotta love that new hospital smell! Which is consequently the exact fragrance I put in my car, "New hospital" smell! They were great. I got EKG'ed, blood drawn, and chest x-rayed. All results said nothing. I got an anti-inflammatory shot and the ER doc said something about my muscles in my chest were spasming and that caused the severe pain. Hmm... Kind of like my CRAZY RT HIP PAIN YOU MEAN!?!?! I don't know.

Of course my rheum doc has been gone all week. And they ask, "Well have you called your Primary care doc?" I DON'T HAVE ONE OF THOSE! I'M TOO RARE FOR PRIMARY CARE! I really did say that, but not in a yell-tone.

So I got a catscan yesterday of the hip. Or as I call it, "the last of the scans". I surprisingly enough have not had this done yet. Dr. Bhanusali (rheum) thought I should so I did. Don't have results yet. And my leg that was improving, is back to pain town. Which is a bummer, but hey, it's just what's up at the moment. Physically at my worst, mentally at my best all by the grace of God.

Next week, I go scare another, fresh, new primary doc. The plus is that this guy will be a Baylo Clinic doc. I've eeked my way into their system now. They probably throw darts at my chart during lunch and breaks. My medicine is whack. I mean, it's livable, but it's a lot to manage. It could be worse.

So that's the haps! So thankful for the friends who helped us out. It's a wonder they still answer phone calls from the Nichols!!! I give all my friends a red phone for when I call...

A 30-emotions-filled birthday!

2011-01-13T14:31:00.008-06:00

Dudes, this is long but please stick with it. I pray this story blesses you.

Kind of weirded out by the fact that I've filled out the number '30' for age on a couple of forms. Yeah, they were medical related forms for new patient visits- shut up! It's not the whole idea of 30 and being older- it's not! I'm thankful to be alive most days, for real. It's just weird writing a new number. I'm so used to the 2-something writing. It's as simple as that.
Really. I'm cool with it.
Turning 30 was fun. I mean, I'm already using x amount of creams for all sorts of remedies: firming, de-firming, wrinkles, smell goods, etc. so why not just own being 30. I'M 30 AND I'M OWNIN' THIS THANG! Really, all you 29'ers suck it up. Sorry to be brash, but come on. There is a LOT worse things out there then a silly age. We are going to have a "I'm 1,000 years old today" moment in Heaven. This is nothin'.

The Lord gave me the best presents on my birthday. When I woke up I'm not gonna lie I was a little sad on the day of due to the fact I wouldn't be hearing from not one blood family member on my day. I straight up miss my earthly daddy who's been gone now for almost 3 years. I didn't tell anyone, just Jesus. He told me, "I got you." I believed Him and went on my merry way to church. There was some hint of surprise lurking in the air. I got a big ol' surprise as I crutched into La Vida Loca at 4:30 I came into the party room and there was all my family (my in-loves) and my family in Christ -girlfriends- holding up their menus over there faces and then "SURPRISE!!!!"

John didn't get my friends' pics. He had a lot going on. I promise they were there! I didn't make them up!
Thank you John for arranging this. You explode my heart with your coolness.

Then it gets better. See, as I have lamented on here before I found almost all of my pictures thrown in our trash cans one day. Here I was holding on to these pictures of me as a baby- can you imagine? - all wrinkled and thrown away. All my memories. I was devestated and cried out to the Lord in my garage. He immediately spoke to my heart with His spirit- "I'm your Daddy. I'm your Mommy. I got all your pictures with me and I see them everyday. I love you!" I gathered the pictures and put them in our closet. If you know me, I'm an archiver. I have a photo scrapbook for Leelah as well as a journal where I write all of her funnyisms, accomplishments, firsts, etc. It's a big deal to me.
You must know, I have grace for the person that threw my memories away. I've forgiven and will keep on forgiving them with Jesus' (and a little counseling) help. I can't understand why someone who holds such a precious position in my life would do that, but that is no excuse for me holding a grudge. I know God loves me which gives me the love to forgive. Please know, I'm sorry you were so hurt by life that you did that.

In our precious small group - Cookbook Book Club- I shared this whole situation with my girls as part of our study of Captivating. One girl in particular had a tug on her heart about my memories not being kept here on earth. The Lord put it on my special friend's heart to collect all of my pictures (just about) from birth to my child's birth- my whole life! 30 years! This was mission, which took several months, not only involved her but her kind husband, my hubby, and several friends. Together they compiled them all and made me my very own scrapbook complete with letters from all my friends. Thank you Lesly for compiling the letters and for taking pictures of my church family! This present was saved for the last. I have to tell you, when I opened it I had NO idea. When I saw it was my face on the front cover and opened it to find my daddy's pics and then my birth pics, all through school, college, wedding, etc. I cried 30,000 tears for 30 minutes tears of shock that God knew just the present to get me. I cried that such a sweetheart answered the call to do this, tears of just utter amazement. It's certain that some of the guests were a little afraid of all the emotions. It was intensely perfect. Jesus came to my party y'all!

Oh and there's more, because that's how He works.
This sweet friend, Becky- I love you!- knew about another need I had expressed. You see you have pictures of yourself and all your glory moments plastered in your parents' hallways. I didn't. This was hard! Well, sweet Becky picked out some of my special moments and had them in a beautiful frame which is when my mom-in-love got up and accepted it. "This is going in our home, Gillie. We love you so much!"
Blown away. At this point, I had every membrane that produced tears, saliva and mucus working on overtime. BAAHAHAHAHWWAAAAHHHHH... It was beautiful. Not my crazy, sweaty over-emotional face, but Jesus' gifts from my friends and family.

Yeah. I'm very blessed and cannot thank God enough for it. Thank you to everyone who was a part of that moment and a part of the new moments in my life. I love you guys.
Whoa.
Then my sweet Mindee-friendy, had made get this- 5 of my favorite pie/cake ever: Banoffee- bannaffee? Whatever, that stuff is goooooood.
That was the birthday when I've never felt so loved.

OOOOoooooh weeeee

2011-01-11T14:14:00.004-06:00

WHAT UP WITH ME?
Yesterday the Johnster and I rolled it on up to the Baylor Clinic. We noticed so many similarities to Mayo Clinic in regards to the decor, the e-chart, the doctors wearing all fancy clothes, etc. I would like to change it to "Baylo Clinic". Now, I have quite the file at Baylo Clinic, thanks to my whacked out zonules in my eyeballs. So I have an "in" there. Why I haven't just been seeing all the doctors in that system, I'll never know. But I have now seen basically the entire Baylor Eye Clinic, the Parkinsons Disease and Movement Disorders Clinic and now, Rheumatology! The Rheumatology clinic is my new favorite place to be in the medical center in Houston. Dr. Bhanusali gets 2 lax finger joints waaaay back (= good rating) from me!!! LOVE her.
She's super smart and informal- a GREAT combo!
Here's how it went down:
Me: "I'm a mom of a 4 year old who basically can't walk and do what I need to do for over half a year. I've been having pain since Oct. 2009!! I can't eat cheese anymore! I've had 9 eye surgeries!!!!! WAAAAAHHHHH!"
Dr. B: "That just sucks."---NO KIDDING SHE SAID THAT VERBATIM!!!
I liked her immediately.
She has several theories. She is the first doc to actually have valid theories- meaning I've ended up in the right place which she verbally confirmed by saying, "Rheumatologists deal with the weird diseases. And you are even weird for us. BUt we cannot leave you like this!"
Theory of the first:
1). My hip wants to dislocate due to the connective tissue disease (still not named) but can't, so it just gets crazy inflamed- yowza pain!- thus causing muscle spasms, ergo affecting nerves in surrounding areas. The hip dislocated back in '94 during drill team tryouts when I did the splits and then I got up and kicked my own face. One of my favorite stories to share.
2). I might still have Ehlers Danlos - a type of connective tissue disease that has many types. I have to go get a different gene tested in HOUSTON to figure it out. This will probably take months, but she still wants this done. This disease affects the joints and whatnot. She isn't happy with my connective tissue disorder being: "not otherwise specified"
3). I might have a form of Lupus due to my ANA bloodwork being positive. This doesn't mean I have the systemic Lupus you hear about, no but more of the weirder forms (duh) that mess up connective tissue. She ran more bloodwork yesterday to get that looked at.
4). I get a catscan of the hip next week - Wed. Just throwing that in, not really theorizing there.
5). I'm actually a real "weirdo" a la Gonzo in the Muppets.

Needless to say, Dr. B is on the case!!! I'm so thankful that I was referred to her by Dr. Shahed (neuro genius). Oh and I got a whole new medicine regimen to in the meantime treat the symptoms which by the way, is all you can do with any of those above theories. Manage it. Who cares! I'll take managing over living in pain all day any day, right!? I was overjoyed with how well the appt went yesterday. Plus, I got a Reeses buttercup, could you ask for more? Well, you could, but lunch was too far off.

So I go back to Dr. B in 3 weeks after the medicine regimen has been in action. I have a feeling with the right mix of anti-inflam and muscle relaxers I could be a pain-free walker here real soon!!! Praise the Lord from whom all blessings flow!

"Rheumor" has it...

2011-01-07T15:50:00.003-06:00

CRAZY MEDICAL SAGA UPDATE:
Today was my much anticipated visit to see the neuro at the Parkinsons Disease & Movement Disorders Clinic at Baylor, phew! It went well. Dr. Shahed was obviously brilliant with the bonus of a sweet bedside manner (thanks Jon- she was really just as you described!) and I felt as if I were being seen by the best in that niche of neurology. She said that while I definitely had neurological symptoms- tingling, slight nerve damage, brisk reflexes, that those were symptoms not the source. Meaning something non-neurological is causing neuro things. Which is good news that it is not neurological! She also gave me new muscle relaxers which shouldn't affect my vision so badly like the one I'm taking which has caused so much improvement, but messes with my CNS (central nervous system). So this should help further relieve the spasms.
She recommended I go see a rheumatologist and was SHOCKED that I hadn't seen one already b/c they treat weirdos- I mean- people with connective tissue disorders and especially hard to diagnose stuff. She gave me a referral to Baylor College of Medicine's rheumatology dept. What is a rheumatologist?
I called and the soonest they could get me in was Feb. 28th- to which I cried. I've heard it can take as long as 4 months to get into one so that is actually not bad, but it is bad because that will have been 7 months of not walking!!!
Fast forward to this afternoon, I got a call from the nurse who said they could work me in for this Monday morning! Whoop!!! Thank you Lord Jesus! Big deal.
So, thank you for your prayers! This is hopefully going to be the last stop on the medical crazy train for us. God willing.
Many blessings came out of today. Great news that my brain/spinal cord is not at the cause of this. Now on to what is!

Our 2000top10

2011-01-01T19:15:00.006-06:00

2010.
Would I do it again?
Why don't I peruse,
what was for us, news:

1. It was the year of the eyes for me. 4 surgeries to correct my lens dislocation in the left and just one in the right! I'm proud to say that the Lord's done an amazing work on my sight! So glad I can see, all that HE has done for me.
That concludes my rhyming schemes.

2. John got the chance to be lead package engineer for his project! John, do you mind if I brag + blog = "brog" on you?

3. Leelah got to sing in front of the church with her WAM Jr. choir. This was a much treasured moment we won't soon forget.

4. MAYO CLINIC!!! We came. We saw. We got blood drawn. Not John, just me. And after 30 years of not knowing why my eyes were, um special?, I now can say I have some "Darned if I know disease!" (thanks Dr. Hamill!) that affects my connective tissues! No, I didn't get that on a t-shirt. I'm considering it, "I went to Mayo and cried and almost got snowed in and all I got was a connective tissue disease diagnosis and this tshirt!" We did make a pretty flippin' sweet little doctormentary though...

5. The Titus Project- our church's mentor program became a reality!! I am so very thankful for our precious mentor and for our sweet group. God knew what He was doing and it worked out so well!

6. We tried some crepes for the first time ever. We didn't like them.

7. We totally did it up Cajun style at New Orleans with some of our most favorite people, The Vinings! One day post eye surgery I might add. Which for me is like saying, one day after shopping at HEB. It's a frequent occurence is what I'm sayin!

8. We got to go to the North Pole via the Polar Express with the fam. It was magical to hear Leelah ask, "Why isn't there snow here!?"

9. We got to meet a lot of new little blessings born to this world! I would list them all, but for fear of omitting one I'll just say, "We love you Baby Class of 2010!"

10. We've learned new lessons in compassion and patience from my not being able to walk for almost 6 mos. The lessons learned through these trials are what life is all about! I'm thankful for them and I'm thankful for our many friends that have been there for us- you know who you are and to us you are the light of Jesus!

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU! I just know that 2011 is going to be even better! Blessings!

It was Merry!

2010-12-26T17:04:00.003-06:00

Merry Christmas everybody!
I ruined 4 dishes in some way: burning, wrong ingredienting, neglecting, over-managing. My poor, trusty hand mixer who never did anyone any harm, received the brunt of my blame. We didn't get to see that many lights on our light-seeking adventure- but we did get rained on in our slippers (unwise shoe choice). I'm still limping and have crazy contact dermatitis (ugly rash) from the test I had done on my legs.
But this is NOT what it's all about. It's all about a God, The God, who loved us so much, He actually came down to earth to save us all. He didn't do it in a grandiose way. He is humility. So why do we feel the need to be all grandiose? The humblest moments are of greatest worth, in this ol' toe' up Katy mom's opinion. I pray your Christmas time was full of perfectly humble times with your family and Lord.

Spazzing Out in Style...

2010-12-20T15:36:00.004-06:00

Things are good here. Spastic, but good. We got to take a train ride from a far away land- East Texas- to the North Pole all themed to the book, The Polar Express. It was precious and to see Leelah's reaction when Santa came in our train car with the jingle bells for all the kids was just priceless. She did say it was "my dream come true" so that was great. This is the stuff! It was so nice that I got to go at all. We were all sweating what the hip pain would allow, turns out it made it through! Praise.

I'm still limping and being fabulous, glory to God! I saw my neurologist last week. He said that since the Baclofen (muscle relaxer) seems to have initiated a small improvement then it has to be Spasticity. What is spasticity? Yeah, I'm a big spaz- hush up I hear you with my mind!!! For all you know it could be an X-Men mutant power, then you'd be all jealous!

Here's what "We Move" states spasticity as:

Although the end result of spasticity is problems with the muscles, spasticity is actually a caused by an injury to a part of the central nervous system (the brain or spinal cord) that controls voluntary movements. The damage causes a change in the balance of signals between the nervous system and the muscles. This imbalance leads to increased activity (excitability) in the muscles.

Spasticity is a symptom. We still have to ascertain why I am having this and why I have not been able to walk pain-free for a looonng time.

Tomorrow I have a fun test known as SSEP. It's bascially where they send electrical signals through your body and monitor how fast it takes to travel. I think it involves needles? It's medieval in nature or as our friend Jonathan put it, "not pleasant" and he would know he's a neurology expert. Here's the skinny on that test:
This info is from www.allaboutbackpain.org

What is it?
Somatosensory Evoked Potential (SSEP) is a test showing the electrical signals of sensation going from the body to the brain. The signals show whether the nerves that connect to the spinal cord are able to send and receive sensory information like pain, temperature, and touch. When ordering electrical tests to diagnose spine problems, SSEP is combined with an electromyogram (EMG), a test of how well the nerve roots leaving the spine are working.

Why is it done?
An SSEP indicates whether the spinal cord or nerves are being pinched. It is helpful in determining how much the nerve is being damaged and if there is a bone spur, herniated disc, or other source of pressure on the spinal cord or nerve roots. SSEP is used to double check whether the sensory part of the nerve is working correctly.

How is it done?
Either an electrode is placed over the skin or a needle is inserted into the nerve or sensory center of the brain. Measurements of how long it takes an electrical signal to travel through the nerve pathway are recorded. The function of the nerve is determined by the speed of these electrical signals. When the nerve pathway is pinched, the signals are slower than expected.

Remember I have had the pleasure of an EMG. Or as I like to call it, "Needles, nerves, and electricity - OH MY!" That showed that both of my legs have nerve damage. So we are still Nancy Drewin' it for now. Meanwhile, I've been driving!!!! PTL! Not much, but it's enough. I am so thankful for any improvement and it's good to rejoice in small victories.
Merry Christmas!

Too soon for glory giving?

2010-12-14T14:24:00.003-06:00

NO WAY IT'S NEVER TOO SOON TO GIVE GOD THE GLORY!!!!

"Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make knwon among the nations what he has done. Sing to him, Sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts. Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always. Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles and the judgments he pronounced..."- Psalm 105:1-5

Okay friends, family, countrymen, aliens with internet access- I am walking!
Limping actually (but who cares about technicalities!)!
After 4 months of not walking- crutching and wheeling, and not driving, and over a year's worth of pain- I am very proud to say PRAISE THE LORD for His deliverance out of this and the beginnings of restoration. Not even restoration- wait- rejuvenation- no, wait. How about rebuilding? I like that. I have been rebuilt with new understandings and a new closeness to the Lord and with more compassion for people that REALLY have it tough. Lord, please don't let me forget your blessings. Please don't let me forget the hurts in my construction phase that have been used in my remodeling. And THANK YOU for this chance to walk with a new found appreciation.
Thank you for my new vision, that came from no sight. Thank you for my new walk, which came from not walking. Praise!
See here's the deal.
Last week I noticed the pain was lessening. It just didn't hurt as bad to sit, stand, lay down on that side, and finally I thought well why don't I just try walking around the house. Which is what I have been doing for the past week or so. I can limp slowly and I do still feel pain. The pain did start gradually last October, who knows maybe it can gradually go away. The bonescan did show that the swelling the bone marrow (what I'm still sticking with as the cause of pain) had gone down or had gone away. Praise again!
I do still have the neurological issues: tremors, tingling, left side off, possibly spasticity, etc. and I will get those looked into further by possibly one more neuro. The MRI's of the brain and neck showed nothing. I have a great friend and connection who works with a neurologist that I am hoping to go see soon. Thanks Jon! And I will see my other neurologist tomorrow to go over stuff too. I'm hoping that will lead to more answers? This is wonderful news and I'm so thankful for it. Now we just have to pray I get back (God willing) to fully functioning again. I will be thankful for limping though!! And let's also pray that I know what the heck that whole deal was about it so if it comes back we can be on it!
So glad I get to share you all a piece of the Lord's victory in my life. This is good!

Blessed Christmas Moments

2010-12-07T07:16:00.007-06:00

This past Sunday Leelah sang at church in her pre-school choir, WAMjr! There is truly nothing I enjoy more than these performances. I treasure these moments. It doesn't matter if my kid sings or sulks- I love it. All the crazy stunts the kids do during are just pure gold to me. And there were great moments... I've blogged about them before and they still hold true: Christmas Programs are Hilarious

And we even got to hang with our precious family! And get a semi-plausible family photo which would be great if not for my glasses which if in the sun just right might catch my face on fire.
But really, thank you Lord for your Son and for these moments which are just brilliant.