Studs

Studs. Studs are all the wood that frame your house under the walls that you are not supposed to see. Studs are really all I have seen since moving in over the summer. Guess what though? The studs are disappearing. Walls down. Walls moved. Walls drywalled in. Hallelujah. 

And Im thankful for the biggest stud of all- my Tim. I laugh at how in the WORLD we have seriously done this and 13 years later.... that man and I were just made for each other. No explanation. 

Well clearly blogging is the first thing to get crossed off my list when I hit "over capacity." And I don't mind that. I feel confident I can catch up! 

Oh, and I am healed- for real, the good Lord and physical therapy has made me stronger than ever so watch out house- you will not take me down. 

So, my only other excuse is that I was converted over to a Mac Book and am still trying to figure this thing out.... also Tim wants me to use our nice camera to take pics of the house renovation and bless his heart, that just hasn't happened!

I am educating myself and hope to make it happen! WE FINISHED THE ADDITION!!

I don't even know if you remember, but there was a crazy huge addition built onto the house and never finished.... it had sliding glass doors in the middle of the house and there was no HVAC- also the old front door used to be to the right of the bookshelves. Things have happened crazy fast- we are ON BUDGET, have done everything ourselves minus the drywall- all the shopping, paint mixing, hauling, labor, ect... whew I am tired again now! Through these seasons we just don't get a lot of sleep, there are no secrets, just no sleep. And I'm not really kidding.

This renovation has seemed like such a blurr- behind the wall is our kitchen, it was taken down to the studs, we just got drywall in over the weekend.... and we are weeks away from being pretty much "finished"- we use that term loosely.

The hard part is that balancing a house renovation in the middle of your life/ raising a family is REALLY un-natural. There is no normal- so we always err on the side of putting the house last. Which would make a lot of people crazy living in the mess, but my kids, family, friends, and church are just more important. You have to know that up front before starting a project. There are just more important things and a house falls far on the list sometimes. We are dying to finish though and be able to entertain and host and do what we do! We like people. Lots of people. And we like them in our home.

So, more details to follow on the blog, but here is our new cozy family room. We are in love. I am digging to get all my before, lots of during, and my fancy after shots together. Just be patient with this near insane mommy of small children :)

David's kindergarten Valentines Party- my superman David

Cooking in the hallway because we ripped our kitchen out. Breakfast burritos.

Tim still ripping pieces of the kitchen out. This is real life.

Loving on my sweet, sweet 6.5 year old

Mackenzie and her preschool buddies valentines party

Mackenzie and Daddy on the Daddy-Daughter Valentines Dance

You better believe I sold every. last. thing. that we ripped out of that kitchen. Oh yes I did.

Down to the used garbage disposal and all baby. Buyers on craigslist are something.

Weekly moms Bible Study on James. Loving this.

Working with Mackenzie while she is home with me!

Blue Man group with Timmy on my birthday

Worked another fun event at Chickfila Corporate and their kitchen makes me so happy.

And you better bet we have gotten deals on every last thing we are putting in this house!

My Trader Joes shopping buddy while Daves at school

Lots of friends birthday parties on the weekends...

Holy crap. Found this picture from when I was pregnant with David. 23. Wow is all.

We have a little fire pit we bought for outside here. Something so fun about it.

Did I post these already? Santa came this year

Everyone was pretty happy about that

Santa even got my ring re-dipped. First time in 10 years.

And Tim got me these awesome trunks that I am in love with. Story later.

And we surprised the kids with a Legoland trip.

I will never regret pushing deadlines, delaying projects, and moving slower to spend time with my people..... I am so glad. I think in some crazy way God has equipped us to live for the now in the midst of literal walls coming down. Hey thanks for that God :)
I love that our kids get to be apart of watching some of their parents dreams come true. I love that they are even little passionate real estate people. David has already asked when the next house we are buying or what walls we will be taking down to which I quickly reply, "SHUSH IT!" Not really. I say, "No more houses baby and no more walls coming down. We are going to keep those up now. Daddy is a crazy man." Ha! I don't say that either. No one dares to ask me those questions in my fragile state.

We are almost done. And I feel like we have overcome so much.
Gratitude fills our home and dreams really do come true.

The Injury...

It's taken me almost 2 months to process everything that happened in such a whirlwind.!
And no it has nothing to do with a pregnancy! Oh I cant wait to be old enough for people to not ask me if I am pregnant, ha! And just for my own records, we decided our last pregnancy 18 months ago was the last child I would carry. Unless God completely intervened, we are not having any more biological children and are journeying down another road right now we are very excited about! God really is able to give abundant peace, clarity, and wisdom in family planning if you will ask for it. He has answered us loud and clear in so many ways that I'll never be able to even write about.  More about that when time deems so...

So, to walk myself back through what happened. Nov. 13th I woke up with the left side of my face completely numb. It was kind of a joke as I figured I had slept wrong or something on my face. I moved on and the next morning I got concerned when I woke up to find it was still numb. It was now Nov. 14th, Tim's birthday. That afternoon, I had been watching my friends 2 children and we were having a big play date. I took the 4 children to Lowes and on the way home the left hand side of my body started going numb. I decided to take the friends kids home and get my own people home!

I call my mom and of course she immediately tells me I am having a stroke. ! So I decide to wait until Tim comes home and give him a fabulous birthday surprise that I am dying. Luckily, we had celebrated on the weekend because I still feel like the worst wife ever for ruining his birthday night. Tim is concerned and after a few phone calls to some family/friend nurses and doctors, we decide to go to the Emergency Room. Let me just tell you if you ever need to get back into the ER quickly, just tell them parts of your body are going numb. Apparently it is a big deal and within 20 minutes I was stripped down on the trauma floor and they were running a EKG, Cat-scan, and all kinds of blood work. They had no answers but eliminated that it was a major stroke, brain aneurism, or anything crazy. They sent me home and ordered an MRI for the following morning with a Neurologist appointment. MRI was freaky if you have never had one. I don't like small spaces so I tried to not think about it. Anyway, MRI was cleared and ruled out a minor stroke, Multiple Sclerosis, and any clots. You know... its a weird phone call the day someone calls to tell you that you don't have MS.  It's like.... okay, thank you... when 48 hours prior that wasn't even on your radar. Anyway, the Neurologist basically had no idea and that was another wasted co-pay. At this point I really need the Lord to intervene. I can't feel half my body and no one seems to have any idea.

And that is always when the Lord steps in. Within 2 days a neighbor and family nurse tell me that they think it is the same problem. The 2 people dont even know each other. My neighbor is a chiropractor and I had gone over there to see if he had any thoughts. He was able to adjust me some to get some feeling back, but told me the next day he thought it was Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. Well, also within those 2 days word has spread through the family and one of the nurses in the family used to work in the Thoracic Outlet Center- crazy. She immediately called and said all my symptoms pointed to that. So, within a week, I went to see this specialist and I was diagnosed immediately with it! Praise the Lord for a diagnosis.... I feel like that is half the battle sometimes!

No to figure out what the heck it is and how do I fix it. Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. Upon learning about it, I immediately felt really sad. It was an injury I had caused. And not meant to.
The specialist told me it was from excessive, overuse, repetitive constant motion. Ay, yi, yi. It is really common in athletes, but he was trying to figure out WHAT I had been doing. Well, pretty soon this doctor un-covered my whole life story between small children, renovating houses, and the house cleaning job I had for 2 years. (Which by the way, I only had 1 house left I was doing and finally closed that chapter of my life literally a week before the injury happened).
Anyway, he said the combination of ALL of those activities for long periods of time basically led to a "burn-out." The overuse in my left shoulder and all the heavy lifting from renovations (which womens bodies aren't apparently made to do excessive amounts of heavy lifting) caused compression on the nerves in the left side of my body, thus causing me to go numb.

Good news? It can all be fixed through physical therapy. Not 100%, but pretty close. The physical therapist said I do have some bulging discs that cant be fixed, but managed and under control. Have you ever been to physical therapy? It's basically like entering the gates of Hell. Oh my gosh. So painful. They adjust you, but also move your tissue/muscles where they need to go, do heat ultrasound, ice, also put you in a machine called Traction that stretches your spine out. I think I may have hit 5'4" now =)
But it works. So I do it. And I love the physical therapist I am seeing. She just tells it like it is. And she has given me back confidence as I again felt like my body totally failed me. She explained professional athletes are the most injured people in the world. And even with million dollar health care and therapy.... when enough is enough, your body needs you to chill. No amount of money can make your body rest and recover.  So, that is what I have been doing. I have been in PT twice a week and trying to rest. TRYING is key. It is very hard and will be life style changing for me.

Tim feels really bad and like he caused this and has told everyone, "I broke my wife." I assure him that I don't blame him for any of it and I share the real estate dream and cleaned houses to help our family through a rough time. It helped us a ton and Tim got us back in the best position now that we have ever been in. We are a team and when you take a side, no one wins. Life leaves a few scars sometimes.

Anyway, I have feeling back and PT is working. I have some set backs when I "over do" it, so we are trying to find a balance.

Either way, I am glad that I entered 2013 feeling all sides of my body, ha! Also glad that God has been with me in sweet ways. Things like this remind me we are made from dust and our flesh will fail us. I am thankful for a strong inside that God can only give.

End of the Year!!

This is my attempt to catch my blog up in pictures and wrap up 2012! We have done so much on the house and are 1 month out from completion- we were hoping to finish Christmas, but with life and children... we had to push it back!
Going to be blogging and trying to get all of 2012 up before the year ends!! We have tons of things happening so I have to get on it...

Funny things my kids say that I need to remember real fast:
Mackenzie gets so mad when I wash her hair and I am trying to pass off this chore to her to do by herself completely. However, during the dramatic process (because EVERYTHING is dramatic when you have a daughter) she says, "Mommy, stop bossing my hair around. I do not like it!!" She calls me scrubbing her hair with shampoo = bossing it around.

David since he could speak constantly calls a "hotel" a "hu-tel". I don't know why and I can't seem to shake it. Oh well, hu-tel sounds a lot fancier I guess.


I need to start back at Halloween:

Trick or Treating at the Avenue outdoor shops. David was a pirate and Mackenzie was Belle.

Mackenzie loved the man on stilts... the girl has no intimidation or fear. David cautiously peered at him from behind my leg...

We have been trying to eat and try all the restaurants on the Marietta Square. We went to Thaicoon with some people from church and it was very yummy! We live being a mile from the square!

I am shocked we still use our bread mill and bread machine (going on 5 years) and we have been using our juicer for a year making the "Mean Green" veggie juice!

Our street during the fall...

I worked an Event with Microsoft when they released the new Surface in November...

Our 2012 pumpkin

I think we have close to almost 30 children on our street. We all went trick or treating! Have I mentioned how much I love living here??

I got a new beautiful nephew (Tim's oldest brothers and child #2), baby Ben. Tim and I are now Aunt J and Uncle Timmy to 4 sweet boys!

We spent lots of time on Kennesaw Mountain as the leaves changed on the weekends..

I've been helping teach the 3 year old nursery class at church...

Mackenzie LOVES baby dolls. She is a full time care taker of them right now

Tim turned 31

David was "Squanto" in his first school Thanksgiving play.

We had a FUN date night for Tims birthday to Ikea and dinner with my best friend who shares the same birthday!

I am still running the Farmers Market and made some yummy homemade cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving

Beautiful Thanksgiving day

LOTS of food!

Mackenzie and my nephew Josh have become so close and look so much alike!

Went back to my natural color being a brunette, ha!

Took the kids to see the Nutcracker!

We went on the Tour of Homes in Marietta with my mom and dad. It is all of the sudden fascinating to me since we now live inside the Historic District to see houses that have been renovated. It was fun and we got some great ideas!

Mackenzie was my first child to go to the E.R. Never thought it would be my daughter first. She opened her dresser drawer out on her and it went pretty deep right in her eyebrow line :( I was very sad, but she was super brave and barely flinched. 3 stitches in her eyebrow. So thankful the scar will be hidden.

Thought this was a little overkill, but they were numbing her face before stitches. FYI- if your small child ever gets stitches, they are put in a straight jacket so they don't freak out. It was so sad for me to see that. Again, she thought it was a game because Tim wraps them in blankets tight and they pretend they are burritos. Ha! Was thankful for that silly game that kept her calm.

David getting ready to sing in the Kindergarten Christmas Choir. So sweet.

Worked another event in early December at Coke Corporate. Every inch of that place was decorated, it was a lot of fun!

Love seeing the Polar Bear every year and he is so goofy when no people are around, we had fun with him!

Santa and Mrs. Claus.... the hilarious part about this... a friend paid for this couple to be at her childs birthday 3 years ago and GO FIGURE, my grandmothers assisted living place hired the same folks. I have the same picture from 3 years ago posted here. Hilarious.

Annual Christmas lights sight seeing...

Pink Pig ride on Mackenzie's 4th Birthday! Very fun, but the night ended very bad when we were pushed to the ground by some people who had robbed a store and were trying to flee. We were fine. Maybe more on that story later.

Mackenzie is now 4 and has lots of sassiness to prove it!!!

But she LOVESSSS her big brother. They are so so close and sweet together.

We decorated Gingerbread men at a friends house...

And to end the year, I suffered an injury renovating the house and have been spending LOTS of time in the physical therapy office every week. Definitely more on that later....

And here is Mackenzie in my shirt when I was a little 4 year old at Christmas.... oh how I see so much of myself in her it's scary!

Hold Fast blogland, I have more pictures, stories, and some big exciting things for 2013 we are pumped about :)