Sunday, December 7, 2008

I'm still alive!!!!

that's me mowing our lawn this summer...since my last post (i know forever ago) a lot has happened...early june dominic and i took a trip out to northern california...we went to a friend's wedding, visited napa valley and left with some of it's wine, stayed with our friend carrie in san francisco...
the view from the inside looking out at one of the vineyards we did a wine tasting at...amazing
up close and personal with the grapes and the owner of this small but fantastic vineyard...tres sabores...they make a great wine called por que no?
we made it back to bristol just in time for the 4th of july parade in town...the outhouse races are a must see at least once...
this is an annual tradition that people train long and hard to participate in...very amusing...
the rest of july was spent packing up our apartment for the big move into our new house...thura wasn't sure what was going on but enjoyed finding new places and things to play in and with...
she insisted on crawling into any spot that once held something...she needed to know what it felt like being there....
packing paper became a favorite new toy...
i think at one point she thought this might be her best way to make the move as well...
the move was successful...two weeks after we were in we held our first party...it was great...
dominic has created a removable wiffleball field in our backyard...
as summer ended it brought with it the beginning of dominic's traveling for work and the start to my school year...teaching pe and 3/4 is going great...i love being able to get to know all the kids in the school personally...
the beginning of sept found me back in minnesota for a whirlwind of a weekend when my sister faith got married...
this is the same pose we had about 10 years ago when all down in grand cayman...

Monday, June 23, 2008

homeowners...

well...a lot has happened since my last post...i am going to skip over all of it to the present day...dominic and i started looking online at houses in the area about 2 weeks ago...just to see what was out there...last week we went and took a look at a couple of them...one was amazing but too small the others were nothing special to speak of...then searching friday afternoon i found one on craigs list...since our realtor had her daughter's 2nd birthday party on sat. we emailed the selling agent to see if we could take a look at it...sat afternoon we went and looked at the house...neither of us was expecting a whole lot because how the exterior of the house being fairly simple...but we both fell in love with the interior...it is amazing...we came home called a mortgage company, got pre-approved and wrote up an offer with our realtor on sunday...we got the call this morning...they accepted our offer...we close on july 31st...we are excited but both somewhat is shock...we thought it would take a lot longer to find our "perfect" house...here are some pics...we have 10 acres...3 bedroom 2 bathroom...about 2000 finished square feet with another 1000 unfinished in the walkout basement...


























Saturday, May 31, 2008

first visit from a sister

well memorial day was creeping up and it was looking like dom was going to have to stay in michigan and keep working...so i was thinking it would be nice to go somewhere or have someone come visit me....i called joy up and we discussed her coming out...we found a relatively cheap flight and she showed up friday night of memorial weekend...sat had us in lincoln at the town wide yard sale...that was a new concept for both of us...we had fun walking around and seeing people...then i took her to the school that i teach at and up the lincoln gap....sat night we made our way down to the bobcat after some mimosas at home...we had a couple beers and some appetizers...needless to say the beer is strong and the bed felt good that night...sunday was beautiful...i took joy hiking up the bristol ledges...it was a lot of fun...sunday night we stayed in...made enchiladas and drank wine...monday brought a whole new experience for joy...wiffmorial....we headed down to seth's place about 1pm...everybody started showing up shortly there after!!! it was great...it rained but the game and the grilling went on...it was great for joy to see where i live and to meet my friends out here....it was also very good for me to have the company of my sister...love you joy...thanks so much for coming to visit!!!

Thursday, May 22, 2008

physical education...

well it is official....i am the P.E. teacher at my school next year...i will be in the 3/4 multi-age classroom 50% of the day and then i will be the pe teacher...the pe position is 40% so that puts me at 90%...which is great!!! for those of you that don't know...i minored in pe when i was in my undergrad...i will have to some classes but hopefully not too many over the next 2 years...i am very excited about this and looking forward to being able to work with all the kids in the school....

Monday, May 19, 2008

the train ride of life

dominic's mom shelly sent this to me this afternoon and i thought it was insightful and well worth the view...remember to enjoy the ride!!!!

train

thanks shelly for sharing!!!

Sunday, May 11, 2008

mother's day hike


well being as i am not a mother and don't have family to spend time with on mother's day i decided to take a peaceful hike up the mountain behind our place...i went up to the ledges...this is a place where you can see for miles...it was a pretty clear day...there were quite a few people up there that had the same idea i did...
this picture and the next two are pictures of our little town of bristol...it is a beautiful day here...sunny and 70 or so...perfect day to celebrate all the amazing mothers out there in our great world!!
thank you to all the mothers that have given so much of themselves to their children!!

chicks and elmer

one of my students asked me to come over and see the baby chicks his grandpa is raising...the pics aren't great because of the red heat lamp but here they are...they are so cute...i then got to see elmer the rooster and his girls...i walked away with a dozen eggs as well...
he is very protective of his girls...
this was a very fun and interesting day for me...not something you get the chance to see in the suburbs of minnesota!!!

Saturday, May 10, 2008

maggie's b-day in boston

the weekend after i got back from bonaire we headed to boston to help maggie celebrate her 16th birthday...we went shopping sat. afternoon...we had an excellent dinner at a small italian place...it was great...afterwards we headed to fenway park to watch the boston red sox play tampa bay...we were just to the left of the green monster in the bleachers...the seats were pretty good...it was pretty cold and every once in awhile a cold breeze would come and chill us even more...but we had plenty of blankets to keep us warm...here are are maggie and ray...this was ray's first baseball game...don' t think they have it in holland
as you can see sharon, dad and annie are bundled up as much as they could get...
dom and i sat down a couple rows from the group...the guinness was cold and flowing...
the red sox won in big scoring fashion 12-4...the following morning had us eating breakfast at this great little french restaurant...dominic was completely happy with his french toast...he even took a picture of it...
happy birthday maggie...thanks for including us in your birthday celebrations!!!

Saturday, April 26, 2008

island speed...bonaire

i arrived on bonaire sunday morning april 20...i landed at 5am and walked out through customs with both of my massive suitcases and the cat at about 5:30am...i didn't see my dad, sharon or tiff anywhere...usually they are waving at me from a window as i walk off the plane onto the tarmac...i did catch sight of my grandma...nonnie...i called out to her twice saying nonnie...each time louder then used her real name of lou...still louder...apparently she didn't recognize me...after getting closer to her and her finally seeing who i was we sat to wait for the rest of the fam...after about 10 min. i asked nonnie if she had her cell phone with her and that if she did we could call them and see where they were...we made the call only to discover that the muffins were coming just coming out of the oven and they were on their way...we had mimosas and muffins in the parking lot...it was great to see everyone...
we spent the next couple days down by the pool...just relaxing...we went to Capriccio for dinner one night...we also spent a day on the mushi mushi celebrating dad's birthday... scott barlass everyone!!!!
i had to take thura to the vet down there to get a health certificate so she could come back into the states...the vet is dutch and has a pet goat that thinks it's a dog...the sunsets were beautiful...even thura spent time enjoying them as well...this was our last sunset on the island for this trip...she loved being out and about down on bonaire...
all in all it was a fantastic trip...i had a great time with dad, shar, nonnie and tiff...thanks for a great time!!

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

remission?????

i went back to the lyme dr. a week ago...after having a long conversation about how i was doing he asked me if i was ready to get the PICC out...i told him that if he was teasing it wasn't very nice...he laughed and said he wasn't...
this is the picture of the last time i had to look down at my arm and see this...the following picture is of my dr. cutting the stitches out that held it in place for 2 1/2 months...
i was sooooooooooooo excited to feel this happening...it didn't hurt at all...i was expecting it to...
my dr. was kind enough to stop pulling half way so that his nurse could take this next photo...
this was such a huge day for me...i am off all antibiotics and have started a herbal regimen...i cycle through 3 different herbs...12 days on 1 then 2 days off then start the second herb...and so on...for those of you that like to do a little research i am on samento, cumando, banderol and burbur...i am doing ok...i have more energy then i have had in a long time...i am still a long way from being healthy...but i finally feel like im on the road to remission...i just need to remember that it is a slow process to health...but ill get there

Thursday, April 10, 2008

thank you to a good friend...

a good friend read my blog and sent me the following quote knowing how much i love quotes!!
thank you!!

you know life brings out its complications, its hardships,
but you know, it's how we deal with them that counts. and
i know that each and every one of you have felt, at
one point, like you couldn't go on. but then you found hope.
there's always some way to find hope. remember that.
-Nicholas Jerry Jonas

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

HOPE-lessness & HELP-lessness

hopelessness and helplessness both have strong root words...HOPE and HELP...throughout my life have experienced both of these...i developed a variety of coping strategies to deal with these feelings...most of them involving extreme physical activity and/or exhibiting controlling behaviors...this journey through lyme began with me in a state of helplessness...i was shocked and scared when i was diagnosed...i spent the first 2 months spinning and drowning in the overwhelming feeling of helplessness...i couldn't use my normal coping skills to deal...the more research dominic did for me and the more processing i did, i started to move to the 'HELP' realm...through the combination of eastern and western medicine my lyme went into remission...this was short lived because 5 weeks later i relapsed...i spent a month gradually getting worse unaware that i was again suffering from lyme...i stayed fast in my HELP space and opted for extreme, aggressive treatment through iv antibiotics...the first month went by without the lyme responding...the second round of meds started along with a round of oral meds...after spending 2 hours everyday for the past 30 days letting antibiotics drip into my body i finally reached a breaking point this past week...i started to lose it...i was spent...mentally...emotionally...and physically...i had moved into the space of HOPELESSNESS...this was a new and difficult space for me...i have tried to be so strong and upbeat throughout this journey...and i am fed up...i spent the last few days feeling the despair that can drag you into depression...i came to the decision that i need a break from my meds...im not sure what it will do in terms of my lyme but i also have begun to learn that to be truly healthy i need to take care of my mental, emotional, and spiritual state of being...my decision to talk with my dr. about different options or a possible break has taken me across that fine line into a space of HOPE...after a very thought-provoking session with my counselor i think i finally realize that regardless of whether i feel a sense of helplessness or hopelessness there is always those strong, powerful root words HOPE and HELP...and between God, dominic, family and friends i am NOT alone...i will continue to accept this journey as an invitation of growth and amazing opportunities...thank you for riding with me!!

Monday, April 7, 2008

faith and lessons

i know that there are lessons that life teaches us in many different ways...i have always known this but never so much as now dealing with a long term (possibly chronic) illness...

this past week or so have been extremely difficult for me and i am not entirely sure what has changed but i am exhausted, physically, mentally, emotionally, i don't have much left...at least that's how i feel right now...

my papa sent this email out and it seem to hit a chord within me and i wanted to share it with you...it is a little long but well worth the read...

thanks for the continued support and prayers!!

This is an outstanding testimony from Tony Snow, President Bush's Press Secretary, and his fight with cancer. Commentator and broadcaster Tony Snow announced that he had colon cancer in 2005. Following surgery and chemotherapy, Snow joined the Bush Administration in April 2006 as press secretary. Unfortunately, on March 23, 2007, Snow, 51, a husband and father of three, announced the cancer had recurred, with tumors found in his abdomen, - leading to surgery in April, followed by more chemotherapy. Snow went back to work in the White House Briefing Room on May 30, but has resigned since, 'for economic reasons,' and to pursue ' other interests.' It needs little intro... it speaks for itself.
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'Blessings arrive in unexpected packages, - in my case, cancer. Those of us with potentially fatal diseases - and there are millions in America today - find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God's will. Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence 'What It All Means,' Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.

The first is that we shouldn't spend too much time trying to answer the 'why' questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can't someone else get sick? We can't answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.

I don't know why I have cancer, and I don't much care. It is what it is, a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.

But despite this, - or because of it, - God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.

Second, we need to get past the anxiety. The mere thought of dying can send adrenaline flooding through your system. A dizzy, unfocused panic seizes you. Your heart thumps; your head swims. You think of nothingness and swoon. You fear partings; you worry about the impact on family and friends. You fidget and get nowhere.

To regain footing, remember that we were born not into death, but into life,- and that the journey continues after we have finished our days on this earth. We accept this on faith, but that faith is nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many non-believing hearts - an intuition that the gift of life, once given, cannot be taken away. Those who have been stricken enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith to live fully, richly, exuberantly - no matter how their days may be numbered.

Third, we can open our eyes and hearts. God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease, - smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see, - but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance; and comprehension - and yet don't. By His love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise.

'You Have Been Called'. Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. A doctor stands at your feet, a loved one holds your hand at the side. 'It's cancer,' the healer announces.

The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask him to serve as a cosmic Santa. 'Dear God, make it all go away. Make everything simpler.' But another voice whispers: 'You have been called.' Your quandary has drawn you closer to God, closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter, - and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our 'normal time.'

There's another kind of response, although usually short-lived an inexplicable shudder of excitement, as if a clarifying moment of calamity has swept away everything trivial and tiny, and placed before us the challenge of important questions.

The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies. Think of Paul, traipsing through the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes (Spain), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment.

There's nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue, - for it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer, and the most we ever could do.

Finally, we can let love change everything. When Jesus was faced with the prospect of crucifixion, he grieved not for himself, but for us. He cried for Jerusalem before entering the holy city. From the Cross, he took on the cumulative burden of human sin and weakness, and begged for forgiveness on our behalf.

We get repeated chances to learn that life is not about us, that we acquire purpose and satisfaction by sharing in God's love for others. Sickness gets us part way there. It reminds us of our limitations and dependence. But it also gives us a chance to serve the healthy. A minister friend of mine observes that people suffering grave afflictions often acquire the faith of two people, while loved ones accept the burden of two peoples' worries and fears.

'Learning How to Live'. Most of us have watched friends as they drifted toward God's arms, not with resignation, but with peace and hope. In so doing, they have taught us not how to die, but how to live. They have emulated Christ by transmitting the power and authority of love.

I sat by my best friend's bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer took him away. He kept at his table a worn Bible and a 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. A shattering grief disabled his family, many of his old friends, and at least one priest. Here was a humble and very good guy, someone who apologized when he winced with pain because he thought it made his guest uncomfortable. He retained his equanimity and good humor literally until his last conscious moment. 'I'm going to try to beat [this cancer],' he told me several months before he died. 'But if I don't, I'll see you on the other side.'

His gift was to remind everyone around him that even though God doesn't promise us tomorrow, he does promise us eternity, - filled with life and love we cannot comprehend, - and that one can in the throes of sickness point the rest of us toward timeless truths that will help us weather future storms.

Through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we not? Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations? Can we surrender our concern in things that don't matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do?

When our faith flags, he throws reminders in our way. Think of the prayer warriors in our midst. They change things, and those of us who have been on the receiving end of their petitions and intercessions know it. It is hard to describe, but there are times when suddenly the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you feel a surge of the Spirit. Somehow you just know: Others have chosen, when talking to the Author of all creation, to lift us up, - to speak of us!

This is love of a very special order. But so is the ability to sit back and appreciate the wonder of every created thing. The mere thought of death somehow makes every blessing vivid, every happiness more luminous and intense. We may not know how our contest with sickness will end, but we have felt the ineluctable touch of God.

What is man that Thou art mindful of him? We don't know much, but we know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us who believe, each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place, in the hollow of God's hand.'

T. Snow

Friday, April 4, 2008

short vent

i am so sick of being sick...i have felt nauseous for the past 4 days...always feeling like im on the verge of being sick...i can't tell if it is lyme related, med related or some type of flu thing ive caught...but i can tell you that im not going to take being healthy for granted ever again!!!!!

Thursday, April 3, 2008

isla mujeres

this is where dominic and i were able to spend 4 days...it is a small island off the coast of cancun called isla mujeres...we stayed on mainland cancun but spent most all of our time on the island...it was our pace of things...very chilled way of life...dominic's cousin meghann got married a week ago this past wednesday on the island at sunset...
it was a beautiful day...meghann and her husband steve had an amazing start to their married life together...
we were able to spend time with some of dominic's family...
his dad, jolene and sam
emily, meghann and ellie
ellie, meghann and emily again trying to decide what type of pizza to get for dinner...
here is ella wearing the beach...
we spent the days after the wedding hanging out with meghann, steve, their families and friends...we went to dolphin discovery where sam swam with the dolphins and kissed one.
i fed a sloth vegetables and got up close to some other creatures...
and
..then we went to garrafón natural reef park...
this is one of the towers for the zip line...there are 3 parts to the zip line...we didn't do it because we got there late in the day...
meghann, steve, dominic and i chilling at the end of the day...
we had a good time...i think the sun was good for my lyme and my health...here's hoping spring comes soon...