Just Trying to Get Better

Hi friends.  Just thought I'd pop in here to let you know I haven't abandoned my blog.  What I thought was the flu that hit us wasn't the flu.  For me, it was an upper respiratory infection and a kidney infection.  I've been battling this since Friday with fever as high as 103.  Joy and Luke had a touch of something the end of last week running fever, but now Joy's much sicker and running higher temperatures.  I always worry about a sickness or virus pushing her into another pancreatitis episode.  I'm trying NOT to worry though.  It doesn't help and that's the opposite of faith.  :)

Together, she and I sound kind of pitiful with our hacking and coughing.  Thank the Lord for my mom taking care of Luke during the day!    And now it sounds like Jason might be trying to coming down with something too.

We're so ready to feel better!  We're ready for spring too!  Where are you spring?  

Anyway, I appreciate you hanging with me!  I'll be back as soon as I can!  We're just trying to get over this and get better!  Thank you!  :)

♥ Tammy ♥

{A Quick Post}

Hey, all!  :)

Just wanted to let you know that I haven't forgotten about my blog.  We are in the ER with Joy, waiting to be taken up to a room.  We don't know yet if it's pancreatitis or something else.  We would appreciate your prayers!  :)

Thank you and God bless,
Tammy

Getting Back to Normal.......

We’re back at home!  Things are pretty much back to normal around here except for all the “stuff” accumulated in our house from cleaning out Pawpaw’s house getting it ready to sell. 

Last week, right before the hospital adventure, we had just finished moving everything out of Jason’s dad’s home.  We pretty much came in and left it in our house with the intention of getting it all organized over the weekend.  We had to go from Plan A to Plan B, which was to camp out in the hospital from Friday evening to Monday evening (which wasn’t so bad by the way).  The hospital was wonderful.  Luke and I slept on the futon bed and Jason on the recliner chair that stretched out to a bed.   

We have a "coffee table of goodies" from the hospital.  She received the dog from Grandmama nad Pop for all the guests, nurses, doctors, and staff to sign, flowers from a friend, and the teddy bear and a balloon from a friend.  She also received a book and cards!  We had so many calls and texts and knew so many were praying!

But Praise the Lord, Joy is much better and by looking at her now, you’d never know how sick she was this weekend and how much pain she was experiencing.  After the pancreatic enzyme they were watching came down to 296 (from the original 1346) and she was able to eat without hurting so bad, they let her go, which was Monday afternoon.

We still don’t know the cause, as I said in the previous post, but we are to call the pediatric gastroenterologist if she has any other kind of “stomach episode” like this and get her to the ER so they can check her pancreatic enzymes again.  Documenting any further episodes (which we hope and pray she doesn’t have) may help with figuring it all out.  Besides sending us home on Protonix and a low fat diet, we have no restrictions.  That sounds pretty easy but for a picky eater like her, it’s not really so easy.  They told us to just take it slow and make small dietary changes, which is what we’re working towards.

Joy’s post today goes into more detail, if you’d like to read more.  I just wanted to update you on the fact that we’re back home and Joy is doing well and that we thank you all so much for lifting her up and covering her in prayer.  I can see God bringing good from this already, if nothing else but to help her overcome some deep rooted fears.  Now, it’s time to get all this “stuff” organized and finish up our school year!  Then…..we’re looking forward to a trip to see our friends, Kim and Chuck, whom we were in China with (and that also came to see us last September) the end of this month.  We’re so excited!  I think we all need this! 

Thank you for stopping by today! 

M.I.A. - What's Been Going On Around Here

Did you think I vanished? I don't think I've ever gone this long in between posts....ever. I apologize. It's been a different kind of week around here though.

First of all, Colt has had the flu since last Sunday evening (October 4th). He was quite sick with this flu, with body aches and high fevers up to 104 degrees. He missed an entire week of college and work. This is very rare for Colt. For him to stay at home, in bed, for that long, is very unusual. I'm so thankful that he is better and up around and out, finally. He was able to return to work yesterday and to go to church today. Now, we're just praying the rest of the family doesn't get it. Joy is so determined to NOT get it....she won't even go near his room. I suggested she "borrow" a pair of his anklet socks, and she wouldn't hear of going into his room for them! She knows she doesn't have time to get sick! lol!

Next of all, you know from my last post that we are initiating the adoption process. Well, if you know anything about that at all, you know it's alot of paperwork. Any spare time last week was spent in researching medical issues, talking to adoptive parents, talking with our social worker for the homestudy, and the adoption agency, as well as filling out the many forms and papers that are required. We found THE adoption agency for us. We decided to go with B.A.A.S. The lady that is working with us, Xiaoqing, is just wonderful. It makes such a difference to know we have someone like her working with us. It's so obvious that she really cares and she is very efficient. It is also so exciting to know that a child.....our child.....waits for us somewhere in China.

Along with the homestudy, of course, comes a visit to our home from the social worker, so since we made it past Colt's bout with the flu, we began cleaning and organizing our home yesterday. We took, I believe, four or five bags of trash out of just our bedroom and the hall linen closet. It's amazing what we hang onto that we really don't need! So that brings me to the one thing for which I have pictures to show today! We rearranged our bedroom after cleaning and it looks so much better (and bigger) this way. Funny thing was though when Colt came home Saturday night from work and came into our room to tell us goodnight, he was disoriented. Of course, he has come to expect the unexpected from us. He never knows what he'll come home to find....whether it be a wall knocked out, something being painted, crafting spread over the table, or worse. He sat on the side of my bed, looking around, and remarked how he liked it. Not bad for a twenty year old guy. Maybe I trained him well. :)

So, here are some photos of the bedroom rearrangement. Our bedroom is country, but not primitive. Someday it will get a makeover....all in its own time. (However, I do have a little makeover in progress too). I spent my birthday money on giving our upstairs bathroom a new look. We're working on that too. That's another thing we've been up to. Actually Jason has done more on that than me. Joy and I worked on the bedroom, while Jason painted the upstairs bath. I'll share more on that on a later post. Okay, here's the bedroom pics:









So I hope you excuse my absence from blogland this past week or so. I'll try to do better....really. And I've been just as bad about visiting blogs....couldn't there be just a few more hours in a day? It sure is hard to balance it all, isn't it?

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day and a wonderful week! :)
~ Tammy ~

New Beginnings

We've been blessed with a few of God's gifts to us through nature.....one of which came right to our kitchen bay window. We sat down for supper the other evening and this cute baby rabbit decided to pay us a visit.



Jason spotted him first! I went to grab my camera in hopes of catching him before he decided to hop away. To my surprise, he decided to stay awhile (probably to his mother's dismay). I decided to call "it" a "he". He was just sitting there watching us eat supper and stayed perfectly still as we moved near him too. He even let me close enough for a photo.



At this point, I was beginning to worry that there might be something "wrong" with him. As a matter of fact I was asking Jason what we should do...we couldn't just leave him there for dogs to find. If there was something wrong, I wanted to see what we could do for him. Jason encouraged me to wait awhile and make sure Mama Rabbit wasn't near by....saying that if we touched him and he had our scent on him, she might kill him. I suppose this is the case in Rabbit World.



I'm so glad we did wait because within a few moments, I looked out there and Mama Rabbit was inching close....coming to fetch her wayward adventurous little one. We stayed as still as possible and in a few minutes, baby hopped along with mom. Can't you just imagine the "talkin' to" (or more) he got when they got home! :) But he sure gave us a simple pleasure with his little visit at dinner time and I guess we must have been at least a little interesting to him......curious little fella!

And at the edge of our gravel driveway are four little kildeer eggs. Every year we have kildeer eggs in almost exactly the same spot.



When I went out to get photos, Mama Kildeer moved away from the eggs squawking at me!
These were the closest I could get to Mama and Daddy Kildeer, even with my 300 mm lens.



And then Daddy Kildeer flew in from nearby, so they were on oppposite sides of the eggs, just watching me.



Mama Kildeer creates quite a commotion to distract visitors from her precious babies. She runs to the far side of the driveway just a fussin' and flappin' her wings to gear our attention away from her babies and focus on her. She sometimes even acts like she has a broken wing. She actually did this for my photos!







It's amazing to me how God made each and every creature so intricately...with their own built in protective modes. I'll keep a watch and try to catch the little babies as they make their little debut!

I'm so thankful for spring and all the beauty that goes with it...God's gifts to us through nature.....new beginnings. :)

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UPDATE - I typed the above post earlier today with intentions of adding the rest of my pictures, and then this evening, Jason spotted our wayward visiting baby rabbit again! He came to almost the same spot...just over in the grass. I was able to get some better pictures!



I'm wondering if he remembered us or if his Mama tells him to stay put.



Or if he's being disobedient being out here!



Isn't he the cutest? We gave him a name.......Rascal.



And look at this.....it's pure torture for Bambi lying in the bay window sill watching little Rascal. She was just cocking her head, eyes big, ears back, and purring. And still Rascal stayed.



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One more thing....please continue to remember Joy in your prayers. She has started running fever AGAIN this evening and saying she's tired and sleeping a lot and not feeling well. So we're off to the Dr. again tomorrow. I'm not feeling so well myself. Thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers....we sure appreciate them! :)

Cross-Stitcheries, Some Favorite Photos & a Little More....

Thank you all for the get well wishes for Joy! I'm very happy to say that this is the first day that Joy has not run fever and she is feeling much better. It will be a few days, I'm sure, until she's back to her regular energetic self. We're keeping it low key for the next couple of days with lots of rest. She is still slow going and I understand that this cough will linger awhile with the flu, but the worst is definitely behind us and she is acting so much better! Thanks so much for the comments and emails!

I mentioned in my last post that my friend, Betty, stitched quite a few cross-stitcheries and brought them to me. She brought them around Christmas time, and I tucked them away in my closet in the hustle and bustle of the holidays. Here are the Americana ones.



A Country at Heart one:



She also gave me several Christmas ones:



And more Christmas:



I've bought a few frames from Goodwill here and there, so I'm going to stain some of these and frame them. I'll be sure and show you when I get them finished.

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Last Friday, I mentioned our resident friends in the nursing home that we just love visiting and you'll probably remember me mentioning Ms. Ollie. Joy also mentioned her in greater detail on her blog. She was the one with Alzheimer's and cancer too. Well, I'm very sad to report that she passed away Thursday night. It was especially hard for us too, because we didn't get to make our regular visit this Thursday because of Joy being sick. Please pray for her family. We know her children. She has seven of them. They will all miss their mom tremendously.

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This has been a really crazy week and I didn't get a chance to share any Easter pictures with you. Remember I said we did go to church and to a dinner (against my better judgement since Joy was already beginning to feel bad and run fever), so we took a few pictures that morning and these are a few of my favorites:



This is probably my very favorite! Colt, in his own style, wore a shirt and tie with jeans! lol! He was in Joy's room, kidding around with Joy and me, and tying his tie with Joy standing by (with wet hair) with the normal admiration she has for her brother!

Giving my baby girl a kiss:



Jason with his little girl:



Colt had already left the house when we were taking these pictures. He had to leave to go practice music for the praise team.

But Bambi couldn't be left out...the little fur baby...



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After being cooped up in the house all week and not going anywhere since the beginning of the week, Jason asked us this evening if we wanted to go to Sonic (where we could just sit in the car and not to have to get Joy in and out), and Joy could stay in her pjs too and still get out of the house for a change of scenery! I hugged his neck because it sure was a welcomed outing to me! You would have thought he took me to Outback Steakhouse or something! We took a little drive and it did my spirit good! We listened to Delilah on the radio...so soothing! Now we're back home and have some brownies in hand that my mom made and sent over and we're settling in to watch Rocky IV! Yes, that's Rocky IV...we've already gone through the first three so Joy could see them all (for Jason and me it's probably the 20th time). lol! Believe me this week we have watched some movies!

Another Update, Joy's Giveaway & Faithful Fridays (a little early)

Hi there! It's been a few days, hasn't it? All of our days and nights are running together! You know how it is when you have a sick one or you're sick and one day runs into the next? I wish I could tell you that Joy was well, but she's still sick. Actually, she is still running fever, just not as high as in the beginning. She is just not her normal energetic self. She is weak and just lying around, either sleeping, watching TV or propped up with her laptop. She has an ugly cough. I sure do hate seeing her this way! When they said this would linger, boy were they right! We appreciate your prayers and would appreciate your continued prayers too! :)

Joy did manage to get her giveaway posted over on her blog as well as her Faithful Fridays post today. I won't give it away here, so just click over to Joy's blog (Doodlebug) and see what she's been excited about and been working on for her 50th post giveaway! I believe you have until Sunday evening to sign up and announce it on your blog if you want to do so.



For my Faithful Fridays post, I'm really thankful to have our homeschool testing behind me. I always stress over that. Last year the night before testing, I dreamed that I showed up in my pajamas and didn't have anything ready yet! lol! Do any of you all ever dream crazy stuff like that when you're anticipating something? Well, anyway I'm glad it's behind me and all went well. Joy, of course, didn't get to test, but everything did run smoothly. I went home and crashed after that. I think we all slept that afternoon for a couple of hours at least! :) I'm also thankful that Joy is on the downhill slide of this flu and that her fever is down some. In the middle of all of this is also something good...at least we are spending some time at home...no running errands or activities! See there's always something good packed in between if you look hard enough, right? If you would like to read more about Faithful Fridays, you may also go over to Joy's blog and find other participating folks under her comments.

I'll be back in a day or so to show you a stack of cross stitcheries that my friend, Betty, gave me awhile back. I had forgotten about them! I'm going to stain and frame some of them! Several have an Americana theme that can go up now. She also included quite a few Christmas ones! Betty is one stitching machine! She recently tried her hand at prim type stitcheries and she has done fourteen of them....yes that's 14! Can you believe it? (Did I mention she's retired though)? I can't wait to see them!

Thanks so much for stopping by and for your kind comments! Blessings to you all! :)

Update on Joy

I just wanted to update you on Joy. We went to the Dr. today and she has the flu...Type A (supposedly the worse of the two kinds going around). Because she developed it over the weekend, she's too far into it for Tamiflu to work, so she has to wait it out. Last night was a rough night with fevers of 102 and 103 degrees. It has also thrown a curve into our testing tomorrow. She will not be able to attend, Dr.'s orders. The Dr. said no way...she's too contagious.

She was around some family yesterday for Easter and we're really hoping they don't get it. They've all be forewarned to get into the doctor for Tamiflu if they develop any symptoms.

Jason will be home with her tomorrow so I can continue on with the testing for our area.

I appreciate your prayers! She will be out of commission for a few days, and hopefully everyone else here will be fine. I guess we should have gotten the flu shot!

I'll be back in a few days! Thanks for stopping by! :)

An Unwanted Birthday Surprise

On Wednesday, Colt's actual birthday, he wasn't feeling very well. I took him in to the Dr. and she said he had a bit of a throat infection and some sinus problems going on. She went ahead and gave him a couple of shots, just because usually if they don't, he's back in within a week even sicker. She also called him in some meds too. Well he was better until last night. He's a manager at a steakhouse in town. He called us and asked if we could come drive him home because he was so sick. We're pretty sure it's the flu....he's aching all over, with a bad headache, a fever of 101, head spinning, and even more cold-like symptoms. And he's one to never stop unless he's really sick. He just keeps on going...kind of like the energizer bunny! Since we were just in, I called his Dr. and from what I described, she was sure that was what he had and called him in Tamiflu.



Unfortunately, we are going to miss my Grandma's 91st birthday celebration today in Alabama. We had planned to get up really early this morning and be there for her party, then drive back home all in the same day so Colt could be back at work tonight to close. This changed those plans. Obviously, he can't go and we wouldn't want to pass this along to anyone else, especially my Grandma! We definitely didn't want to leave him home all alone and sick either! So we'll be staying home making sure he stays in bed resting so he can get over this nasty flu! Now hopefully, the rest of us won't get it!


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And look what came in today's mail for me! I'm looking forward to sitting down and savoring every bit of it over the weekend!



And on top of that...you all know that Linda's home is featured and I can never get enough of looking at pictures of her home! I love all of these photos! I love they way they are presented in here and I keep noticing the smallest details!




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And thank you all for the happy birthday wishes for Colt! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and get lots of your planned projects accomplished in the beautiful weather I think alot of us are supposed to have! :)