Kady

It was the end of February in 2004. My husband was in the military. Stationed in Hawaii sounds great but I was far from friends and family, all alone in a new place, while my husband was deployed for weeks to months at a time. We had been married for nearly 2 years and decided that we should get a dog. We were waiting to have kids, and I was so lonely all the time and it's nervewracking being home alone all the time. We found an ad online for Sharpei puppies and went to see them. The store was this run down little skeezy place and the pups didn't look very much Sharpei. The man who showed them to us was either having a hard time with the english language or playing it up to avoid giving us any real answers. He told us all the pups were female. As soon as he was not looking I checked and there were 3 males and 1 female. He also told us the pups were Bull Terrier and Sharpei cross but got really nervous when we asked if he had a picture. We were young and naieve, knew nothing about puppy mills or dogfighting or pitbulls. But when I held that female pup I knew I had to have her. So we bought her. The creepy man gave her what he said was her first vaccine for free and my husband shoved the wrapper of it into his pocket. As we were leaving we asked him about the pups age. The ad had said something like 9 weeks but they did NOT look that old. He said 5 weeks. He'd earlier told us he'd had the pups for about a week already. It made me angry that someone took pups away from their mother at 4 weeks old. Nutritively they need their mother for 5 weeks and psychologically for 8 weeks. When we got in the truck with the pup we read the vaccine wrapper. It had been for parvo (!!) which is NOT the first vax and isn't supposed to be given to such a young puppy.
We named her Kady (pronounced Katie) and she was our baby. Everyone who met her said how smart she was and I would laugh and say I had nothing better to do all day at home alone than teach her tricks! But the too-early weaning and parvo vax did damage. Her immune system was shot. Poor dog made it to a couple months old before her hair started falling out and she was itching all the time. The nice vet we took her to said she had Demodex. Unfortunatley the treatment he tried made her better for only a short while.
Kady grew and grew. Her rolly polly Labrador-pup-with-wrinkles looking body changed. Her ears began to stick up halfway and then flop over and stick straight out to the sides. People started to ask what breed she was and when we told them she was supposed to be Bull Terrier (think the Target mascot) and Sharpei (the wrinkle dogs that look like a fuzzy towel) they would say how strange because she looks like a Pit Bull puppy! Now I had heard all my life how horrible pitbuills are, that they will just bite you for no reason and if they bite you you will die and they have locking jaws and laser beam eyes and come from a hell realm blah blah blah- I'm sure you've heard the rumors. Well I was quite upset that people thought my amazing sweet wonderful little dog was one of THOSE things! I denied it vehemently.
After just a few months my husband was deployed for half a year yet again so instead of staying lonely in Hawaii, we put our stuff in storage and I flew home to my parents farm on the mainland with Kady. Her health was declining though and after a local hicksville vet telling me I was causing her suffering by allowing her to live, my mom and I started looking up alternative treatments online.
Kady kept getting worse and one day she had pnumonia. In my research I'd learned alot about Demodex and had learned that dogs don't die from Demodex itself- they die of a secondary infection due to dogs with Demodex being immune compromised. Her pnumonia got worse and I had to carry her outside to do her business and then carry her back inside. No matter how much pain she was in and how sick or hairless she never growled or snapped at me. All her hair was gone and her skin looked like raw hamburger bleeding and scabbed and she labored to breathe and I knew this was her last night. I thought that horrid compassionless vet was right- I should be kind and put her down. I couldn't do it though because despite her being on her deathbed she would lick my hand when I was close enough to her face and she was still drinking water. I put a bowl of stew in front of her and she drank the broth out of it. She could barely lift her head but there was still a happy spark in her eye and a lick for me when she saw me. So as long as SHE refused to give up, neither could I. But I knew it was her last night. No way could she survive. I stayed up with her all night, laying on a blanket by her and dozing in and out, petting her and telling her what a good dog she was. I wanted to be there for her when she died.
But she didn't die. She stayed the same the next day, but the day after that she was standing up some. The day after that she could walk partway to the door herself. The day after that she wanted to lay outside in the sunshine for a while before coming back in.
Kady had lowpoints and high points but we finally found some herbal treatments that helped her through when she had a bad time of it. She began to get less and less sick each time. At a year old she was doing well, with her sick times being very manageable and her well times being longer. When she was about 3 years old was her highpoint. She didn't lose much hair during a sick point and just got a little itchy and acted fine and happy.

In the course of my research on Demodex when Kady was a puppy I kept running across things saying it was common in Sharpeis and Pit Bulls. I started to actually do research on dog breeds and when I saw a picture of a Bull Terrier I knew that's not what my dog's other half was. She was half Sharpei for sure with her cute little fuzzy wrinkles, but the other half was not Bull Terrier. They were cute, but she'd never looked like one. No, those random people had been right. And they had not been trying to insult my dog. I now saw the other side clearly. She was half American Pit Bull Terrier! It actually made sense. In the years we lived in Hawaii we saw Pit Bulls everywhere. Everyone had a back yard full of Pit Bulls in Hawaii. I met an old chubby brindle pit bull mix and a purebred rednose American Pit Bull Terrier puppy in Hawaii before we'd gotten Kady and they were both so sweet that after all the bad I'd heard about Pit Bulls I just assumed the two I met were the rare exception. And Kady looked just like an American Pit Bull Terrier except with a few extra wrinkles. Then when I researched I found that the majority of things said about pitbulls were just stupid urban legends. I learned that:
-The term "pitbull" is used by the general public to refer to a handfull of seprate and different bully-breed dogs that people lump together and call a "pitbull" due to miseducation and paranoia, so when something says a pitbull bit someone it could have been one of like 5 different breeds or a mutt mix or something not even a bully-breed at all that someone called a pitbull just because it bit someone.
-Despite the fact that "pitbull" is like 5 different breeds together, statistically you are about as likely to get bitten by a Golden Retreiver as you are by any of the combined category of "pitbulls" and that statistically the dog most likely to bite is the Labrador Retreiver, followed closely by several popular small-breed and toy dogs.
-The temperament of the American Pit Bull Terrier and it's close cousin the Staffordshire Bull Terrier is very loyal, tolerant, and loving. Everywhere reliable that I read it said they are wonderful family dogs, great with children. Can tolerate insane amounts of abuse before they snap, if at all - which is heartbreakingly why they make good fighting dogs.
-I learned about dogfighting and puppy mills and the things they do to Pit Bulls would break your heart and make you want to hunt down those responsible and do to them the horrible things they do to these poor dogs. And yet this sweet and gentle breed(s) is statistically much less likely to bite you than a Lab, even though they have much more reason to hate humans!
-Dogs are like anything else: they are a product of their environment and upbringing, not just their breed. Dogs have the mentality of a human toddler. If you locked a human toddler in a box, a yard, a room alone for 8+ hours a day almost every day... if you chained a human toddler in the back yard... well that child would be resentful and could snap. But if you raise them with love, interaction, take them with you on vacation, keep them safe and warm in the house... well then they become loyal and true family members who will stay by your side loving and defending you until their last breath.
Kady was a perfect ambassador for her breed. She was a horrible puppy, in need of CONSTANT mental stimulation to keep her from becoming bored and destructive. When we first got her she would cower and growl and snap if you moved too fast in her direction, like she may have been abused in those 5 weeks of her life before we got her. But she grew up to be the sweetest gentlest dog! 49 stocky, wrinkley pounds of pure love. She won over people who had previously never met a real pitbull and were of the opinion I had been at first- that they were some evil psychodog.
My husband got out of the military and we moved. Got a new vet who said that some dogs with Demodex never get cured but there are ways to manage it so the dog lives a happy life. This was the third vet. The first and third vets were very nice and helpful. The nowheresville middle one was the only one who said nasty things. The nowheresville vet is the same vet that I saw drag a goat with a broken leg into his clinic by it's tail as it's bleating in pain when I was a child so no surprise the jerk would rather have put her down than help her.
When I was pregnant with Chicklet I heard too many irritating times things like "Are you going to get rid of the dog?" and "You know you can't have that kind of dog around children, right? They snap around children." and "Aren't you worried she'll hurt the baby?" But I knew 2 things they did not. One, I knew the truth about Pit Bulls. And Two, I knew that responsible owners don't allow the dog and new baby to be alone together and don't allow the baby to continually hurt the dog, even accidentally or innocently pulling hair/tail/ears. And I knew my dog. I had trained her well. She could do a variety of common tricks and I would occasionally get in her face while she was eating or give her a nice juicy bone and then make her give it willingly back to me since she was a tiny puppy. By the time my daughter was crawling, Kady was trained very well not to be aggressive about her food. Chicklet would make a beeline for the dogfood and begin splashing the water or trying to eat the dogfood and the dog would not growl at her, but would instead give me this pathetic intense doggie look that said, "Mooom! She's playing in my food again! Make her stop!" And of course I always promptly put a stop to it because it is just as important for a child to learn to respect a dog as it is for a dog to learn to respect a child. A dog should not be made to take the abuse of constantly having a baby in her face while she's eating. That is just asking for long-term resentment. If the dog knows, as Kady did, that she must submit to humans getting in her bowls and in her face occasionally, but is confident that it will be made right promptly, then that dog will be happy to be non-aggressive with food. This is something that is best done from puppyhood.

So my dear baby daughter and my dear fur-baby loved each other as I knew they would. When I was in labor, Kady followed me around as if attached to my ankle. When baby Chicklet would cry, the dog would pace back and forth between me and Chicklet until I had calmed the baby. When I was sick she would lay on my feet. She loved to play soccer with the neighborhood kids, until their moms found out the dog they'd been playing with was one of those pitbull dogs and forbid them to go near her. Her favorite game was tug of war with old socks... she loved it when we would pick her up by the sock and she would dangle from it with her teeth, tail wagging furiously and paws paddling air excitedly. When we let go she'd proudly shake the sock before depositing the disgustingly slobbery thing back in our lap, begging us to do it again.

But in her 5th year, sweet Kady began getting sick again. And she got sicker and sicker each time. Like her first year in reverse. Finally she did not get better. She was missing patches of hair, scabby and itchy, and acting down for more than a month. Then she started throwing up and had diarrhea all over the house. She wouldn't go outside through the doggie door, but instead would run to us shaking and vomit or defecate at our feet. I tried a whole slew of new treatments, and with the last one as with the first one it didn't work- one morning toward the end of May 2009 I found her laying in a puddle of excrement. She barely acknowleged me. It was time to let her go.
Dear sweet Kady lived 5 1/4 years. She was sweet, loving and loyal. She was sick at the beginning and the end, but happy and healthy and vibrant for years in the middle (so there, nasty compassionless vet from nowheresville!) She wanted to live, and so she did. Her heart, her spirit, were strong and true. She was a fighter. But her immune system was weak. 5 years were all she had in her, but she put her all into those 5 years. She was so smart and so opposite of the untrue urban legends I'd previously believed about her breed. She was an undercover ambassador for Pit Bulls who snuck into our lives in the guise of a Bull Terrier and educated and changed our hearts. She left us proud to have been owners of a Pit Bull and finally educated on the truth of the breed and better pet owners for the experience. She made a mark on all of us and will not be forgotten.
Some days Chicklet, who was 2 1/2 when Kady died and is now 3 1/4, remembers her. When it happened we told her that Kady lives with Jesus now. She asked every day "Where's Kady?," then every week, then rarely. We thought she'd forgotten. Then not too long ago we were in the WalMart parking lot after dark and as we were buckling the kids in their carseats a dog started barking somewhere in the parking lot. Chicklet exclaimed, "Daddy! It sounds like Kady! Daddy it's Kady! You hear it? Sounds like Kady!" We told her gently that it isn't Kady, Kady lives with Jesus now. She, and the distant dog, were quiet for a few seconds. Then the dog began to bark again and Chicklet strained against her carseat harness and insisted, "Mama!!!! It's Kady! Oh it's Kady... Daddy you hear it is Kady! We have to go get her! Daddy we have to get her!" She kept repeating 'We have to get her!' desperately for a minute while I tried to reassure her that it was not Kady, Kady is safe with Jesus. Finally she quieted and I turned back to the front windshield and silently cried the rest of the way home. I miss Kady too.




~*~

Cancer

God is bigger than cancer. I remember when I was little, 9 maybe, and my sister who was 3 years younger would wake up screaming in the middle of the night that her legs hurt. She said it felt like little men picking at her bones. It scared me when this happened. It started happening alot. She was diagnosed with leukemia. My parents opted to go a natural route (and lots of prayer of course!) rather than chemo and my sis was cured and is now a healthy 23 year old mother of 2. When my sis was first diagnosed with cancer my mother had all of us tested. My mom had ulcerative colitis and was bedridden all winter every year. Turns out she had pancreatic cancer as well. I used to get these weird shooting headaches that felt like searing hot lightning shooting up the back of my neck and skull. Turns out I had a sarcoma of the brain. It's a good thing mom wanted us all tested. My dad and little brother were fine. Well my mom and I were healed like my sister was and live to tell the tale. We could have easily all lost the battle or it could have been overlooked until it was too late.
Now my mother has cancer again. She has breast cancer and has been fighting it for about 8 years. The thing I have to remind myself of when thinking about my mom dying and what if my sister's cancer comes back or mine does or my children get cancer... I remind myself that God is bigger than cancer. If He wants to take my mother home then I can't do anything about it and no doctor or treatment in the world can either. And if he wants her to be healed then the fact that she has a hole eaten out of her chest by cancer and tumors all over inside her does not matter. GOD is BIGGER than cancer. God can take my mother and make her whole and new again. Or he can take her HOME to heaven where she will never cry, never be afraid, never be in pain again. She will bask in Jesus' love and live forever whole and healed in paradise.
I'm not going to lie to you. It's not OKAY with me if God takes my mom home. I won't be okay and I definately will have some serious issues with accepting it. In my mind He needs to heal her HERE and NOW. I need her. We all need her. I want my children to know Grammie. I want them to remember her. I want to spend many more happy Christmases with her. I don't want to lose her and when I think about that possibility I have a hard time keeping myself together. If I'm still blogging when I lose someone dear to me, you're probably going to see a side of me you don't want to know. Or I will go missing because I'm too brokenhearted to blog. But I have to keep on reminding myself that God is bigger. God can heal her and if He does not then I need to remember that she is in paradise and that she IS healed. It may not be the healing we all want, but we all die someday, and when we do, if we have a personal relationship with our creator, then we will live forever in heaven with no more tears and no more pain. And I WILL see her again, someday my own children will meet her, and we will all be together celebrating CHRISTmas for eternity.
Only God knows the future. In the meantime, I will continue to ask God for a miracle, for an earthly healing for my mother. Because God is bigger than cancer, and He can do anything.

Never talk on the phone while carrying a pot of boiling greasy water

Never ever talk on the phone while carrying a pot of boiling greasy water if you're clumsy...
I was on the phone with my husband last night (he is out of town on business) when it happened. I had just fed the kids sandwiches and put them to bed and started getting shaky, realized I needed some protein, but the hamburgers were frozen. I decided to boil a couple because I didn't feel like taking half an hour to fry them apart without burning them (they were stuck frozen together). So I put the burgers in the pot with water and boiled them and as I was fishing the cooked burgers out the phone rang and it was my husband. As I was talking to him, I was carrying the pot of very greasy water to the sink and I'm clumsy so I stumbled a bit and it sloshed onto my belly. It started at the bottom of my ribcage and ran downward to my waist, boiling the skin off as it went, and soaked into the shirt spreading out to the sides too, all in less than a second and I screamed and plopped the pot into the sink to rip my shirt off. Thankfully the kids didn't come running in/start screaming sincethey were in bed supposed to be sleeping. So all of a whole 2 seconds after it happened I'm pulling off my shirt and look down and there's pieces of the top few layers of skin just hanging off in chunks. Ewwww! And OWWWWWW!!!!
I held a wet paper towel on it, then after about 20 minutes of pacing back and forth in pain with a wet paper towel on my belly, I told hubby I've gotta get off the phone to deal with this burn, it's BAD. I was trying not to cry. He's out of town and doesn't need to worry any more than he already was just hearing the whole thing happen. I got off the phone and slathered the burn in the salve I love so much (which it HURT super bad to touch it to put anything on it!) and then put a 6"x6" wet paper towel over that (nothing smaller would work- it was a large burn), then I put a dishtowel over THAT and put a bag of frozen peas on top, which I kept on there for a good hour. I had to take some extra strength tylenol because I was in so much pain. I thought I needed to go get it looked at but I was not in favor of getting the kids up and driving an hour to the city (our local hosp.- heard so many bad bad stories I would not go there unless I was dying!) with a bag of frozen peas on my stomach. Plus I'd slathered so much salve on there they wouldn't be able to see anything and that salve does not wash off... I put so much on there it had not absorbed yet and it would have to be scraped off. No thank you. Not signing up for more pain! Not to mention I would feel silly making such a big deal out of myself over something that was not lifethreatening. And then there's the money. So I opted to stay home and pray the salve would do the trick.
I spilled the grease at around 9pm and by 11pm I had had enough of the frozen peas and taken them off. By midnight the Tylenol and salve had kicked in and I was not in pain anymore. So I put a 6x6" gauze pad over the salve and since I didn't have any tape I held it down with band-aids. Lol!
It is sore today but I changed the bandage at 9am and the redness and swelling has gone on the sides. The stripe in the middle where the greasewater hit first is blistered and missing some skin but the redness has gone and it is only a little sore. The sides of the burn where there weren't blisters are not even red anymore and only a little tender to the touch. My poor skin where it got boiled off though... The poor skin that is left is not ready to be skin yet and is kind of oozing white blood cells and super tender.
There's no infection though and the swelling is totally gone. Just some blisters and missing skin now. I love that salve... I don't think any infection could live through it. It's better than neosporin! I am so pleased with how much better it looks today. Last night I thought I might wind up with scars on half my tummy but today it's only the boiled off blistered area that looks like it will scar. It might not though if it keeps healing at this rate. It'a amazing how much it's improved just overnight. I am glad now though that I didn't go to the ER or something, seeing how much better it was after only 12 hours. Yay! It hurt SO BAD for those first 3 hours though.


There will not be a giveaway this week. There may not be a giveaway next week either because I will be out of town. The week after that should be normal though and I am planning a giveaway. :)

I was going to post my Toddler Tales Tuesday last night but as you have just read, I kind of got distracted. I was going to eat my tasty boiled hamburgers while I posted it. *sigh* One of my hands was occupied holding a bag of frozen peas though so I did not do much typing after all. Oh well, there is always next Tuesday, right?

I finished my book finally. Only the River Runs Free by Bodie and Brock Thoene. It was pretty good. I enjoyed it. I had tried to read it when I was a teen but it was too slow for me then. I can't imagine how I found it too slow!!! It's very good and keeps you interested. I like a book that is interesting enough that you think about what could happen next when you are not reading it. I would be cooking supper and wondering what might happen next. :) It was not as good as some books I've read but it was good and I might read it again someday.
My favorite book ever ever ever is The Oath by Frank Peretti and if you have not read that one you need to. It's very scary but awesome! I loved the paralels of the dragon to Satan and how he rotted their hearts and controlled them. Peretti's newer one, Monster, is good too but it doesn't top The Oath.

Aaaaannnnnd I'm being "mommy"-ed at. Always in demand! I feel so popular... ;) I've got a busy day with hubby out of town. I won a cookbook which I am going to use to make some freezer meals for myself and others. Particularly my friend who is mentioned in my prayer requests in the side bar. I'm not sure when they are going to induce her but the baby's lungs are not mature yet. There is a problem with the cord and they need to get the baby out as soon as possible so we're hoping and praying the lungs mature ASAP!

Last night the kids kept waking up all night. So I'm really tired. I'm gonna go take a nap with my littles. I hope you all are having a great week so far! :)

Footprints in the sand of my life...

A post over on Pixel Perfect gave me the inspiration to write this post. :)

Signposts along the path of my life which I have left as a rememberance of the Blessings and guidance God has given to me!

When I was just a little baby in my mother's womb, I was dying. When I was born they didn't know if I would live. My mom had had blood transfusions previously that did not match her blood. When she was pregnant with me (and 5.5 years later my brother as well), her blood was trying to kill me. Somehow though I did not die. I lived and thrived!

About 5 months before this, in a different state, a baby boy was born very prematurely. The doctors and parents didn't know if he would make it. He had a machine to breathe for him. It was a miracle that he did make it! And he lived and thrived.

I met that boy 13 years later and I soon knew that he was The One. It took him about 3 years longer to come to the same conclusion. ;) But that was 3 years I don't regret. While it was very difficult with all the doubt and rejection, it was 3 years I had to pray, to pour out my heart to God, and to sort out in my mind and heart what was important to me in life.

When I was 17 I was at youth group playing freeze tag in the church basement with the other youth and I tripped on something, likely my own feet, and fell into a window. My hand went through the glass, and then my head and shoulders. Time slowed down. I could hear the glas raining down around my ears. I was through the window to my waist and was about to fall all the way out when my right hand caught the wall at the edge of the window. This was a big window and I should not have been able to reach the edge of it, let alone push back with enough force to push myself back into the church. But somehow the wall was suddenly closer, I was suddenly stronger. And I pushed myself back into the room. I felt myself falling straight backwards. I was surrounded by a bright light, it was all I could see. This comforting glow all around me as I fell backward. I fought with everything in me to stay standing. I could not. I was too heavy. I was scared. Then I felt a giant warm hand on the back of my neck and shoulders, gently oh so gently. Someone said in my mind, more like a knowing than a hearing, "trust me." I paused in my fighting for a second, then as I realized I was still going backward I fought again. The calm voice said, "You are safe. Trust me! Trust me." So I let go. I totally let go. I stopped fighting. I let myself fall backward. Only I was no longer falling. I was being ever so gently layed down. So gently. I felt peaceful and safe. I felt the hand on the back of my neck and shoulders still there and it comforted me. Then I heard other voices. "Is she alive?" "She's not moving!" "I think she's unconcious!" "Somebody call 911! Call an ambulance NOW!" I began to mentally claw my way back and the light went out. The hand was gone. It was dark. I started trying to speak and it was a few eternity long seconds before I could. Finally I shouted, "NO AMBULANCE! No hospital, no ambulance. I'm fine!" But I was not fine... I couldn't see a thing. I pulled myself to sitting and I was blind. Everything was as if I had my eyes closed, only they were open. I hurt. My knee hurt. My left arm hurt. My head hurt. Everyone swarmed in on my all at once and I went nuts. I lost it. I yelled at them not to touch me and said I can't see. They ignored me and I freaked out and began lashing out with my fists at anyone nearby screaming to stop touching me. Finally after I punched my future husband's best friend in the stomach they got the picture and stopped crowding me. After a minute of being left alone, crouched on the floor like some wounded animal, I started regaining my vision. As soon as it came back I was calm. I looked down at my hurting leg and saw nothing, so I then looked at my arm and saw that my wrist was sliced open and bleeding, swelling around my watch. I calmly said, "Can somebody please help me get this watch off before it swells so much it cuts off my circulation?" The youth leader jumped into action and gently removed the watch while his mom got me a paper towel to catch the blood. I refused to go to the ER at first, but later, upon finding that my right knee was split open to the bone about 2 inches long I allowed myself to be taken to the ER. The phantom pains would torment me at night after that. In my knee it would feel like my leg was being sawed off. I would scream and my sister would wake up in the next room and bring me pain meds, bless her heart! A couple months later, after the stitches were out and I was able to walk on it more normally again, my sister and I were talking. I was feeling depressed and moody. Satan was whispering in my ear that God doesn't exist. He said that we are alone in this world. I had been wondering why years of prayer had not turned my man's heart to me yet, if I was imagining my strong feeling that he was The One. I thought maybe all my prayers were wasted. Maybe I'm crazy. I prayed silently, "Oh God! I'm doubting you! Please help me! Help my unbelief! Please don't strike me dead for this; Please show me that You are real!" This all happened during a conversation with my sister about something trivial like music. My mind turned to the accident and suddenly I remembered something I'd forgotten about completely until that moment. The Hand. The Voice. I asked my sister, "Hey, remember when I went through the window?" She said she remembered the horrible incident. I continued, "Well after I pulled back into the room somebody caught me and layed me down really gently. Who was it? I have completely forgotten it until now but whoever it was was a hero for thinking so fast to catch me! I really need to thank them!" She was silent for a moment and then said, "Uuuhhh... Um... There was nobody near you. I don't know what you think you remember but there was nobody near you. You bounced back into the room, bashed your head against the wall on the way, and then fell really hard, rolling."
It was then I knew without a doubt that God had not only not struck me dead for asking for a sign, but in His great mercy he had answered my question months before I asked. He had sent an angel to catch my falling soul gently while my physical body was injured. He took me out of that moment and whispered to me to TRUST HIM. And the echo of that came back to me when I asked Him if He is real. "You are safe. Trust me! Trust me." I KNOW God is real. I have felt His hands keeping me from harm and I have heard His voice whispering to me to trust Him. This has always been a great comfort to me when I feel Satan's lies pummeling me! When the evil one whispers in my ear that God is not real or does not care about individual people, I love when I remember the precious words God whispered into my soul that night.

At 18 years old, I was blessed by Mr. Right waking up to my existance! :) When I was 19 we married in May. We had both saved ourselves for marriage. Praise God! I walked down the aisle barefooted in a fairytale dress my mother made, in the spring by a lake outside. That will be 8 years ago this May... 8 wonderful blessed years!

We decided not to have children for a while at first. Then we decided due to the awfulness of the world we would not have children at all.

Then in January of 2006 I found out I was pregnant. And so on September 17th, 2006, a beautiful baby girl was miraculously born to two people who should not have survived from their own births and did not plan to have children at all.

In July of 2007 I had a miscarriage. It was a very dark time in my life. God sent me the support I needed to be able to finally greive and heal. And in November I conceived our dear Bug! The pregnancy was full of scares, so many times I thought something bad was happening, but it did not and he was born in August of 2008.

1 week before the birth of little Buggie, was the culmination of another miracle. The purchase of our first house!

So here I am, in a miracle house, living a miracle life with a miracle of a husband two miracle children. (And probably a miracle computer since it's tried to croak on me about 100 times already and somehow keeps hanging on.) I sometimes get discouraged, sometimes I despair. It's so hard to see the sun (Son) when you're in the dark valleys, isn't it? But He keeps bringing me up the mountains to see the beautiful view of the tapestry of my family's lives. If I just hang on a little longer through the valley, there's the mountain on the other side and at the top is the overwhelming peace of His presence. At the top, I can see the miracles behind me, a trail of them, like a patchwork ribbon of joys and sorrows, beautiful contrasts that I can only understand afterward- some on the mountains and some not until Mt. Zion.

~
Praise be to God on High! You oh Lord have faithfully brought me through the trials, even when I have drug my feet and resented You! Even when I have doubted! You have been ever patient with me and I thank you Lord from the depths of my soul! I want to be useable by You as You have used others to help me on my journey! Please use me, flawed though I am. Use me to show others Your amazing love and faithfulness to those who love You! Amen!
~

Beginnings of Writing

This post is inspired by a post on MckMamma's blog which I had to comment on. Actually the following is for the most part excerpted from my comment. ;)

Well I heard about "blogging" some years ago and thought honestly, "Well how BORING! Who would read some stranger's online diary?!" But secretly the writer in me was intrigued.
When I was a little child, before I could write creatively, I was told constantly, "You are SO dramatic! You need to be a writer or actress. Find an outlet for all that creative energy!"
Then when I got older I began telling my little sister bedtime stories. We shared a room and the stories of princes and princesses and heroes and babies and love went on into the wee hours of the morning sometimes.
Then when my sister was too busy, tired, or just too old to care about my stories anymore, I tried to write them on paper. One day I asked my sister if she'd let me read her one and she let me, and she didn't like it. I was sooo embarrassed and took it really hard.
I decided I was a bad writer. I burned all my stories. Well actually I think I shredded some, in the interest of full disclosure. Not that that has any point whatsoever...
As a young teenager I had penpals. Over eighty of them. I wrote and wrote and wrote every night but there was something wrong. I would say the same things to different people in 100 different ways and it lost it's personal touch when I was too tired to try to think of the 82nd way to write down what I'd done today. I kept writing as long as I could, for over a year, and stopped replacing them when people stopped writing back. Finally there were none left and I was sad. Sad because they hadn't filled whatever void it was I was using them to try to fill. Sad because I must have let them down or they would have kept writing.
Here's the part in my life where I found my Knight in Shining Armor and we married when I was 19. I didn't do much writing. I knew nobody would ever read what I wrote, let alone enjoy it. I deleted or threw away everything I did write.
As a mom I have been on some message boards and occasionally in the telling of one of my latest mommy adventures I get told I should be a writer. Well I just smile with a tear in my eye when I read that because it's a sweet thought, but in practice who would really ever want to purposely search out and read anything I wrote? There is nothing special about me at all. Nothing whatsoever. I'm not a housekeeping dynamo. I'm not a supermom. I don't have the best behaved kids on the planet. I am not a chef. I am not a big executive with lots of money and ideas to make more. I've only got 2 kids so far, not half a dozen or more, and the two I do have are still just toddlers. I haven't travelled the world, adopted or fed orphans, or even gone to college. There is absolutely nothing about me that anyone would find interesting! I could name off a list of what I WANT, what I would LIKE to do and have and see. But nobody's going to read about someone who wants lots of kids adopted and biological but only has two so far, has lots of ideas but hasn't done anything, and wants to visit Australia but has never left the country. Let's face it, I'm as average plain-Jane as they come... In my own opinion at least. My kids think I have magical powers to manifest milk and cookies out of thin air, kiss away ouchies, and fix all manner of broken mangled abused toys.
About 2 months ago I stumbled upon the Raising Olives blog, and found MckMamma's through there.
That's the first I've ever had any interest in reading blogs. I didn't know they could be about anything and everything. I didn't want to know that they could shine with individual personalities and suck you in like a good novel. Because then I would be HOOKED. And once I got hooked on reading them, I knew I'd never be able to keep stuffing my inner writer down in the dark depths of past hurts and current insecurities.
And MckMamma's annoymous "Mck" nicknames inspired me to get over another of my hurdles- privacy.
So a couple months ago I started a private blog, and then about a month ago I started this public one, and I have not shut up since. And I read blogs every singe day as well and baby Stellan is on my prayer list with my mom who has cancer and baby Jonah and all my friends/family who are out of work from this recession.
Thank you to the bloggers I read for inspiring me. Although I think I've opened Pandora's Box with the whole starting a blog thing now... I seriously can't stop. I've been writing constantly, on everything, not just my blog, and the ideas don't hush up long enough to let me sleep anymore! ;) Look out cyberspace! Boring old me is about to talk your virtual ear off!

My Story

Welcome to my Blog. I’m Mirage. I have been married to my Prince Charming for 7 1/2 years. We have a daughter, Miss Chicklet, who will turn 3 in September. She is a ray of sunshine, happy and chatty and starving to learn everything she can about this world. :) Our son Mini-Man (Bug) will be celebrating his first birthday in a few days. He's not walking yet but he COULD... if only he realized it! ;) He's into dropping things and then chanting "Uh-oh!" and eating big sissy's sticker collection or anything else that happens to be in reach of his teeny little fingers.
So much has happened recently I wish I had started to blog sooner! I will have to settle for a 'breif' (okay stop laughing...) summary backtrack...
When I was 5 I was eager to learn, eager to go to school. They would not let me until I was well past 6 years old though due to my birthdate being in December. Having a December birthday was one of the most bemoaned parts of my childhood! It seems when you're born near Christmas, the relatives either forget your birthday altogether, or they commit the ultimate in baddies by saying that your Christmas present/card is "for both." :p
While I was in Kindergarten bored stiff coloring and playing (while wishing I was actually learning something real), my mom was having convictions from God regarding homeschooling. God finally won out and my mom didn't send me back to public school for 1st grade. I was quite happy with the arrangement since I was nothing but bored silly at school. I had two younger siblings who, at least at first, thought they'd missed out though...LOL!
At 8 years old my paternal grandmother gave me my first crochet hook and some yarn - the start of my lifelong love of crochet! Not to mention a severe addiction to yarn.
When I was about 9 years old my dad brought home a baby goat, much to city-girl Mom's annoyance. ;) (Mom grew to love them and became a regular homegrown veterinary herbalist.) This was the start of our farm life and my love of both goats and natural remedies.
At age 11 I found out I had brain cancer. I was healed completely! God used natural methods, I never had chemo. Praise Him! :)
When I was a month shy of my 13th birthday, the family moved to the middle of nowhere. Literally. Out in the mountains and it took half an hour to drive to the nearest town. I found the woods intimidating and didn't venture out much. I started collecting penpals- eighty-something at one time was my record. It kept me busy and really helped my spelling and writing skills! This is when I discovered another one of my life's addictions; stationery. I absolutely adore office supplies. Sharpies and Post-it's, gel pens and notebooks, staplers and White-Out... *sigh* ♥♥♥
I married the man of my dreams at 19 years old. He was 20. He was in the US Navy. We knew each other from Church. Actually I knew he was "the one" when I was 16, just before he enlisted, but we all know men are usually a little slower to recognize their soulmate. ;) For the first 3 years of our marriage I went back and forth from where he was stationed. When he was deployed I would go home to my parents' farm for the 6-9 months until he returned.
In late summer of 2005 his enlistment was up and we moved back to the home state. The jobs aren't exactly plentiful back in Nowheresville though, so we wound up moving 6 hours away from our families, back in the city I spent most of my childhood in, where we got our first goat. While hubby was in the USN we avoided having children because I couldn't bear the thought of our babies not knowing who their daddy was; he was only around for 6 or less months out of the year. After moving back here, the family dynamic was in place but the financial situation was not. He was just starting a brand new job and we were renting a house with severe electrical issues... It just didn't seem to be the right time. But God had other ideas.
Not 4 months after our move to civillian life, I found myself feeling sick and tired all the time. One day I was complaining to my little sister on the phone and she told me, "That's because you're pregnant." I laughed at her of course. We were using protection. I didn't FEEL pregnant... I felt like I had the FLU. Wasn't pregnant supposed to feel all glowy? MORNING sickness was so named for a reason, right? I feel queasy all day. So that weekend I took a test to prove her wrong. I'll bet you've guessed by now who was proven wrong, and it wasn't my sister.
In September of 2006 we welcomed out first child into the world. A beautiful baby girl; sweet Miss Chicklet. In June of 2007 I became pregnant again. I knew I was pregnant and had all the symptoms, but the tests just kept coming out negative. I KNEW it though, no matter what the tests said! I thought of names for him. Then one day I just felt all wrong. Something was wrong. That night I started spotting. Just barely. But something was wrong. I felt hopeless and depressed. I knew the baby was gone. My baby that had never been proven, never showed up on the test, was gone. A few weeks later I got my proof as my body cleaned out. I thought I would bleed to death. I don't know how I managed to take care of my daughter. I was in the most awful pain and the bleeding would not stop. For 6 days I bled so much I could barely stand. I bled so much I could not contain the blood and spent all day in bed or my computer chair crying. I should have gone to the ER but my brain was so hazed from bloodloss I honestly didn't realize I was in danger. Then it stopped. But the pain in my heart did not. For months I was severely depressed. I felt like I was not allowed to mourn because I had never gotten a positive test result. Like nobody would believe me if I told them. So I bottled it up. My husband didn't understand. My heart hurt so bad! Thankfully God sent a friend to chat with me online late one night. She sensed something was wrong and I was so full from months of bottling it up that I told her everything. It just came rushing out. She gave me the courage to speak about it, and the confirmation I needed to be able to grieve for my baby. And grieve I did.
Then my husband informed me he was ready to try for another baby. I had been pushing for it at the time I conceived my lost baby, so when he said he was ready, I pretended to be overjoyed. But inside my heart cried for my lost baby and I prayed God would heal my heart before I got pregnant again so I could give the new baby the love it deserved. And in God's perfect timing, just as the pain in my heart lessened and made room for joy and love again, I found myself pregnant for the third time.
For the first half of the pregnancy there was scare after scare that I would miscarry again. Then for the second half I fought preterm labor. Right up until 37 weeks. Then it stopped. Of course... Mini-Man wound up being 2 days late. It's a good thing he did not come early, although he was large (8 1/2 pounds) he had alot of trouble breathing those first few months. One night I was dreaming he was cold. I dreamt he could not hold his body temperature and I didn't know weather to put him on a heating pad or call 911. Well the dream scared me so I woke up to find my baby curled up between my husband and I, freezing cold despite about 7 blankets on him. I jumped up and this startled him and he stirred in his sleep. I cuddled him closer, nursing him, and got more blankets and he warmed up. One day not long after that, he stopped breathing and turned cold and gray in the swing. Practically gave me a heart attack!!! I had just checked on him, then I was blowing bubbles for my daughter right in front of the swing, and as we were giggling and playing I looked up and my baby looked dead in the swing. He was a pale shade of gray and his fingernails were purple. I grabbed him and he woke up madder than a hornet. He was like ice. I immediately crawled into bed with him and a heating pad under a mountain of blankets and nursed him. By the time he was fed he was toasty again but for the rest of the week I had to bundle him carefully and check on him constantly because he kept starting to go cold again. I of course had him checked out and was told that he's perfectly healthy, that he might have sleep apnea and would probably grow out of it, and that I did precisely the best thing for him by nursing him in bed to get him warm. They asked if I let him sleep in my bed, and when I said yes, they said that's the best way for me to keep him safe when I'm asleep. Like my dream that woke me up, my mother instinct would be able to tell me better if something was wrong with him sleeping with me. I had been going to start having him sleep in the bassinet but after hearing that I decided to postpone it! He did outgrow it; from then on it got better and better and he had no more scary ice cold episodes. Today he is a healthy boy, smiley and wiggley and loud as a 1 year old boy should be! ;)
Well that is my life to date in the 'short' version! Rest assured you'll be subjected to more detailed flashbacks occasionally as I blog! I am eager to celebrate every precious joy in my life with you as I blog. My precious children, precious time with my Creator, precious memories, and precious hopes and dreams for the future! Thank you for taking the time to read my story. :)