she made it home safe. Thank you Jesus.

Consider this your fair warning – this post is CHOCK FULL of pictures and is very long. Go refill your coffee or something.

she was up at 6:18 am this morning. Asking to watch cartoons. With her backpack on, fully dressed. That’s my Kealey! Just like her dad – has to be three and a half hours early to anything. (Vs. me, who is perfectly content to meander in whenever i darn well feel like it.)  We had a good (well not good healthy, but good tasting) breakfast of cinnamon rolls I started last nite, took lots of pictures, and went and waited for the bus with all the other kids and mommies. One of the neighborhood moms hosted a “Boo-Hoo Tea” for us, so that was a nice little break. Karissa and I managed to stay otherwise occupied with a few errands and i was actually able to be productive at work today also. So all in all, i can’t complain. And I hear a rumor that a certain Father of the Year has found THE SHOES in a Payless up in Minnesuckta so all is well in the Atkinson household. For a few hours at least. (no one move or breathe…)

(I am so proud of my domesticness today after being woken at the crackOdawn. Looky! I made lunch! And the sandwich was HEART SHAPED!!!! All together now… “awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!”)

I don’t know why my Bloggertool is randomly choosing dates to post, but it posted yesterday with today’s date so – to my darling 1st brother, joshua –

Happy

     Birthday!

I can’t ever find my normal font after I change it…that sucks.

Anyways – I hope that you have a great birthday, even if you don’t get Sakura till Monday. I don’t have a funny video of you dancing in the streets of San Diego to post like I did for Daniel, but I will always have our memories of driving across the country to go back to school. Of you getting my Weezer Blue Album and Green Day Dookie stolen in your bad string of luck with cars and aparments, of dressing you up and making you my playmate during those endless days of summer in Quincy. you’ve been a good friend and an awesome brother and now you have an amazing family of your own. Thanks for always being there for me – i miss having you around. Closer. But i hope you have a great birthday nonetheless. Pour out a Henry’s for your homies in the midwest. holla.

Ok – Vacation Review Time.

We had NO money and NO time set aside to actually take a real vacation this summer. For obvious reasons, Ben is doing his best to get all his terminal visits in this summer so that he can be close to home during the end of October through November, should the need arise. This plan actually makes me feel more at ease, so we have muscled through the long weeks of absences. however, it does sort of put a cramp in summer get-away plans. Having Kaylen in the middle of last summer, we obviously didn’t want to go anywhere, and the summer before that i was super busy with work out in Washington. So by about three weeks ago, I was starting to have serious cabin fever. i just needed to get AWAY – to somewhere, anywhere for anything. After hemming and hawing and researching online – we decided to take a quick 2 day getaway to a waterpark type place nearby, and we landed upon KeyLimeCove resort up in Gurnee. (PS – prepare to be blasted by fake caribbean steel drum music if you click on that link!!! Consider yourself warned!)

anyways – we had told the girls we were going to take them to a NASCAR RACE for a special get-away before school started. The girls groan and moan EVERY SINGLE SUNDAY afternoon when we get home from church and Ben cranks up the surround sound for the infamous “Gentlemen! Start Your Engines!!!” and the whole house rumbles and sounds essentially like 32 stock racing cars are driving through the middle of it. We expected that they would be equally as upset about having to go to a real race in the heat – but unfortunately that kind of backfired on us. They all of a sudden became UBER excited about the prospect of going to a real race…leaving us to wonder if our real plan would actually be as fun…But anyways, after church on sunday we packed up while they were at a birthday party, and then we headed up. They blessedly slept the whole drive up, and on a Sunday afternoon, it was quite a nice little drive. We got there and checked in and the girls still had no idea what was going on – till we walked past the check in desk and they saw the huge floor to ceiling windows looking out on the waterpark. Their eyes got very big and they began jumping up and down excitedly – “Can we go SWIMMING TOO!!!?!?!?!?” We get back to our rooms and they kept asking when the race started and when we got to go swimming. i swear i was STILL explaining to Karissa yesterday that there WAS NO NASCAR RACE. The surprise was coming to swim and play instead.

As to the resort itself, i was very impressed with the size of the rooms, and the price, which includes your waterpark admission for two days, really was very reasonable, compared to Six Flags or other local waterpark options.  The staff/lifeguards/restaurant workers – everyone was VERY friendly and knowledgeable and helped make it a great stay. Your room key is your waterpark wristband – which is just one of the many small ways they really have thought through making it EASY to stay there. No fumbling with key cards in a wet swimsuit with no pockets – you just swipe your wristband. You can pay for food at the pool, get arcade tokens, open your room door – all with the ADULT wristbands.

The waterpark itself had a good variety of waterslides, activity pools for older kids ANd babies, and a wave pool/lazy river combo where Kaylen and I spent most of our time. I don’t think that if we had older kids (say junior high age) that it would have been as entertaining for them, but it was PERFECT for the ages our kids are right now. It wasn’t too crowded, there was good control by the lifeguards so the young punks didn’t get out of hand, and they weren’t all anal retentive about the waterslide height requirement thing IF you went down with your child as the parent. It worked out great. The girls had a blast, everyone slept good that nite, and we were able to get up the next morning, have breakfast, and head back to the pool. My parents met us Sunday nite for a good dinner at the resort restaurant, so the girls enjoyed that. And we splurged on the ridiculously overpriced ice cream as a special treat. We ended up leaving around 11 (which was check out time) but really only because Kaylen had hit the wall and we really had no place to lay her down for a nap at that point. The girls were pretty waterlogged too and didn’t put up too much of a fight to leave.

So not a LONG get away – but enough to feel refreshed and just get a recharge. i hope they enjoyed it and remember it. I hope we get to go back sometime in the dead of winter and enjoy it again!

and I think that’s all I have for tonite. I am wiped again and we have a long very busy day ahead of us tomorrow again.

Thanks for all the support and well wishes from my overly emotional posts the last few days. i’ll get back to my usual sarcastic biting wit soon – stay tuned!

peace out.

terra

When I actually DO question my own sanity. My own ability to survive myself.

Tonite was one of them.

this is HARD. Getting Kealey ready for school. Running everywhere in search of the elusive school supply list. Realizing that I should have just sucked it up and gotten the Hannah Montana coveted shoes LAST week when there actually WERE stacks of boxes of them at the store since today there was a dearth of them. ( If anyone happens to be in a Payless Shoe Source store and spots these in a size 12.5 and picks them up for me, I will repay you by naming my fourth child after you.)  Realizing that in a very few short months I will not be able to go ANYWHERE without a double stroller. I will be a prisoner to the lugging of the 53 lb. behemoth stroller in order to do most daily tasks like getting groceries or running in to Target for a few last minute items.

i am tired tonite. Worn out and worn down. Doing all the running around today to get the last minute things, go to the last minute school open house to meet the teacher we found out about last minute, getting naps in, wardrobes planned, lunches made, dinner prepared, kids fed/bathed/pajama-ed, some nice mommy time, kitchen cleaned up and finally all three in bed – This has sucked every last ounce of my energy. and in 10 short hours I will be up to start it all over again. Just me. And my tenuous grasp on sanity and strength. This is what scares me.

this is what makes me question myself.

All around me the neighbors are coming home from their “Last Night of Summer Celebrations”: family dinners at special places, trips to Chuck E. Cheese, one last run to Dairy Queen. And my children have none of that. Instead of a fun family celebration they got me. Tired, cranky, worn-out me. I made a pan of pre-made brownies. We did a Dora foam craft. That was about as much as i could muster. I feel like a bad mom for numerous reasons – mostly just that I feel so inadequate doing it alone all the time. dont get me wrong, when Ben is home he is Father of the Year no doubt. he does what he can from the road on the phone. But at the end of the day, it would be so nice to have someone ELSE carry the little one up the stairs again. Someone ELSE brush Karissa’s teeth/pick up the bathroom/put the clothes in the hamper/listen to the kajillion questions designed to further delay bedtime.

I am just in a whiney mood so I’ll stop.

But at least it keeps my mind off of the inevitable.

The fact that tomorrow, Kealey will be a big girl. no longer will I have my baby home to talk to, be my helper, be my constant companion and friend as she has been for the past 6 and a half years. Every single bible study, MOPS meeting, playgroup and doctor appointment i have ever had – she has gone with me. Grocery shopping, errand running, crazy work-related tasks at the Kinko’s for hours on end – she has been there. Last year seems like such a “baby-ish” thing compared to the dauntingness of ALL DAY SCHOOL. From here on out, she will be with her teachers for more hours in a day than me. Her friends will begin to have more influence on her life than me. When she learns new things, they won’t be from me. I hope she doesn’t forget me and all the fun times we’ve had together. Everything I have learned about being a mommy, Kealey taught me. So many nights rocking and patting and rocking and singing and rocking and crying. So many days of tears and tantrums (both of us) and breakthroughs and joys and new skills. so many times of her making me laugh, making me mad, bringing me to the edge of sanity and back again.

And all that changes tomorrow morning at 8:35 when my baby girl climbs up those steps on the big yellow bus, and waves at me out the window with that huge gap-toothed grin on her face – SO EXCITED to be starting school, “but a little bit nervous and shy too mommy”. She told me today that she thought maybe she was being bad to Karissa cause she really was going to miss us all so very much tomorrow, but didn’t know how to handle it. I do’nt know how I am going to handle it either babycakes. I know Karissa will probably be hit the hardest. She asked me tonite why you had to go all day and leave her. I told her we would try to stay so busy that we hardly had time to even think about it and then she would be getting off the bus. I hope that’s true. I hope I can make that happen.

so baby, I wanted to write this all in a letter for you and stick it in your lunchbox, but I know you wo’nt understand a word of it. And that’s ok. someday when you’re a momma you will. But I hope that day is a long long way off. For now, I’ll write a shorter one. Something about having a GREAT first day of first grade, hoping I packed enough food for you for lunch, hoping your pb&j isn’t too soggy by lunch time. I hope you have SUCH a great time learning all the amazing things you are going to learn in first grade. I hope that having so many friends already in your class doesn’t get you into TOO much trouble! I hope you make lots of new friends and that everyone is nice to you and that you never have horrible no good very bad days. And i hope you stay safe. It is hard, so very hard, to let you go. I want to curl you up and hold you in that rocking chair just a little longer – but that would be cruel. I want you to experience how wonderful this life can be – and all the awesome things about this world we live in. So tomorrow, you’ll take that first step in the journey of the rest of your life.

but know this – I will miss you SO MUCH. My life will not ever be the same without you there by my side every minute of every day. I am not quite sure how I am going to function without my mommy’s little helper there to keep track of my phone, the keys, sissy’s bubba or any of the other million little things I lose and you find in any given day. Who will carry my debit card when we go in the store because I have no pockets and you always do? Lord knows your sister would lose it quicker than I could even hand it to her…

You’re such a good baby girl. I hope the world recognizes that when they see it.

i love you Kealey Grace-Elisabeth, my beautiful gift from God. Wear your name well. Learn all you can. Be the best YOU you can be.

And come home safe on the bus ok?

Love,

Mommy

Ps – if, in the morning, I do seem to have lost my mind, then I’ll know. This really is the end of my rope. And then you’ll all know, why I am questioning my sanity tonite.

Really – i’ll be ok. I know that my current state of mind is nothing that a good night’s sleep can’t fix. That and maybe one of those fishbowl margarita’s from On The Border. Only 15 more weeks. But who’s counting?!?!?

ok really. I am really going to bed now.

That word looks a lot weirder when its typed out than when I say it in my head.

But that sums up how I feel today, where I’m at. i can’t believe its actually been over 2 weeks since I last wrote, but apparently it has. Today we are recuperating from the summer, recuperating from yet another illness (Karissa), recuperating from a quick 2-day family get-away vacation, recuperating from this humidity and the ensuing bone-weary tiredness I feel at the chaos of the last two weeks.

We (my sister and I) shot a wedding last Saturday, and I think that was really when my downward spiral started to happen. It was 12 hours of being on my feet, being up, being on, climbing on things and getting on the ground to get THE SHOT. It’s part of being a photographer, I get that, but MAN I was not ready for how very sore I would be by the end of the day! I could hardly crawl out of my car at the end of the day to make it back into the house! So then I spent that next week (which was last week) being up till midnight almost every nite trying to get all those images edited and posted for the website. 650 images we ended up with out of almost 1600 taken. Craziness! I think my wedding proof book has maybe one fourth of that! But hopefully they are a true representation of all that the day was for the happy couple. I still have to blog it for the 2sis blog. Our small group was in Kidstown AGAIN that Sunday, so again it was having to be up and on in front of the kids. And AGAIN it was a 2 hour long service. So that meant crying kids who were sure their parents had left them at church who were starving and all had to go to the bathroom NOW. We had a birthday party cookout that afternoon, which quickly ended up with a medical diagnosis that led to us being back in Edwards ER for Karissa. She came home from church crying that she hadn’t made it to the bathroom in time, and then it comes out that it hurts to go pee-pee. This continued at the party where in talking with a mom friend of mine, it was determined that she at the very least had a UTI and we needed to call her ped. During one trip to the bathroom there at the party there was a lot of blood in the urine and in wiping so then I started to get worried. We called all the area urgent cares and they were all closed (because it was Sunday and apparently you cannot have medical emergencies after 5 pm on a Sunday). Emily’s mom, who thank the good Lord above is a pediatric nurse, asked karissa some questions, thumped on her back and said she thought a trip to the ER was definitely in order as it would seem that it was progressing to her kidneys, which typically means a night in the hospital getting IV fluids and antibiotics.

awesome.

So off we go for that. Wait a half hour for Karissa to have to pee again, and another three hours for a culture determination. Get sent home with the word that “yeah she has quite the infection, but we aren’t sure what it is, so try this antibiotic and re-check with her ped in a few days”. My poor kiddo. such a trooper. We drove home watching a fireworks show somewhere in Joliet or Crest Hill. It made her happy. She thought it was all just for her being such a good girl at the hospital.

And then to top off a week of shopping for back to school and staying up too late, Ben had to make a last minute trip out of town, which wouldn’t normally have thrown me off schedule so bad, but I was just kind of already in the groove of not being the single parent, and I had to pick up my game mid-stride. I think it just wore me out more than I realized.

So by the time Friday morning rolled around, i was just in NO mental state to deal with what happened. It was already going to be a crazy day with picking up the babysitter, going to work for an hour, going back home to get Kealey and drop her off at a birthday party, go back to work, go back home to get babysitter and take her home, pick up kealey and drive back home. That morning though, in a conversation with a friend, i realized that Karissa was really feeling no relief from her painful UTI symptoms. Then I panicked when i realized that the call i had deleted from the ER nurse was NOT just a friendly courtesy follow up call (which, in my defense, they have done after every single hospital visit there we have had), but it was her probably calling with Karissa’s follow up culture report so that I could go to her pediatrican with updated info. I could’nt find the papers anywhere, and when I finally DID find the papers with her info, I got shuffled to three different people before finally getting someone who  knows what I am talking about. “Oh yes, Mrs. Atkinson, we’ve been trying to get a hold of you for a few days. It looks like Karissa’s infection is completely resistant to the antibiotic she’s on. She actually has a really high level e. coli infection.” a WHAT?!?!?!?!

At this very moment, Kealey comes in through the backdoor carrying a screaming karissa, who had somehow stepped on a bumblebee and was stung on the bottom of her foot which was quickly swelling to about twice its normal size. So I am trying to remain calm while the dr. dude discusses antibiotics and resistancy and horrible words like e.coli, all while trying to calm karissa down, look for a stinger and hold an ice pack on her poor little foot and make sure her airways aren’t swelling. In my mind I just kept repeating – “I will not lose my mind right now, I will not lose my mind right now”. The hospital calls in a scrip for Omnicef to our pharmacy, Karissa calms down from the bee sting, and off we go to get the babysitter and start the craziness of our real day! In my mind and heart I am trying not to panic at the thought of e.coli taking over our house, because I am logical. I know that e.coli is naturally found in your system and that it is a leading cause of UTI’s and that there are a million and one reasons why its plausible that Karissa has an e.coli UTI: she just OFF of antibiotics so her stomach is weaker, the pool filter was clogged for a few days and there were horrible things growing in the pool they swim in every day, she is four and has some, umm, questionable hygiene habits not fully formed yet, etc. etc etc. None of this really makes me feel better though in my internal conversation I am having with myself and I am able to hold it all together for the ride home with the babysitter, get in the car and make it around the corner before the tears flow. Many many tears come fast and hard and out of nowhere and I decide to just go in and get a cup of coffee to try to relax a little first before attempting to get my ever growing to-do list accomplished at work.  The coffee helps, a little. The crying helps, a lot. I guess sometimes you just need to let the tears flow, to clear everything out. I hate crying. I truly do. But it was cathartic on that day, in that time. So I let the tears flow. and then realized that in the big scheme of life, a UTI was really not worth sobbing over.

So I got kealey to her party, made it back to the office, cleared a LOT of stuff off the list (thanks erin for being so willing to jump in and assure me that its ok to not have everything PERFECT and that sometimes just being DONE is good enough!), and made an appointment with her pediatrician for that afternoon just to reassure myself that ANOTHER round of omnicef in less than 30 days was going to be an appropriate course of treatment. You may remember from a previous post that Karissa just got over a horrible infection in her ears from her tubes coming out, and was on omnicef at that time as well. In the 7-10 days that she was off this super-strong antibiotic, she managed to contract this e.coli UTI. I think this was where my panic was coming from. I am not normallly an antibiotic pusher. i think the body is usually equipped to do what it needs to do to fight off infections. So two courses of this stuff in one month just really seems off and exorbitant to me. However, you can take one look at Karissa and realize she needs SOMETHING. She is in TERRIBLE pain most of the day, in spite of round the clock tylenol and ibuprofen. So after another whirlwind tour around town (thank GOD that Ben was able to come home early and alleviate some of the run around), we made it to her appointment with a doctor we have never seen before. I was nervous. I hate having to pull out the whole momma bear act, but I hate even worse when I am dismissed by medical personnel as not knowing a THING about the child who I have borne and nursed through every illness of their short little lives without THEIR help thankyouverymuch. So I was prepared to do serious battle if this dude decided that Friday afternoon was just NOT the time he was going to do work. But God’s hand was with us and we had a VERY sympathetic and awesome nurse, and dr. Brinkman ended up being above and beyond my expectations of a listening,  sensitive, take-charge kind of doctor. He listened to my theory about Karissa’s spina bifida/ear infection/UTI symptom connection, agreed with me and said we definitely needed to look into things further before serious damage gets done. He had the actual report faxed over from the hospital and went through it line by line with me. It was heartbreaking to see this long list of things they used in the lab to try to kill her infection and have it listed RES (for resistant) next to just about every single one. So in the end, the omnicef is our last resort. If this doesn’t kick it, she is in the hospital on IV antibiotics till it goes away. There are only 3 IV meds that look like they might kill it. They have no idea why her e.coli count is so very high, they only know it needs to be killed. So pray pray pray that this omnicef round works. Thank God that insurance covered another round of this expensive antibiotic. I was worried that they wouldn’t, considering we just got off a hefty dose of it. But they did. 

In the best case scenario, her culture we take in at the end of this week comes back clear or clearer, meaning its working. If that’s the case, we get to move forward with a VCUG procedure to see how much damage is being done to karissa’s urinary tract, given the fact that its highly plausible that due to her spina bifida she truly doesn’t feel the urge or the pain associated with a normally functioning UT system. In this procedure she will be sedated and fluids will be flushed backwards up the tract and then flushed back out in a normal emptying manner. I cannot imagine the pain this procedure will cause, which is why I am glad for the sedation, and yet scared a little also. Its always a scary thing. In this test we are looking for the stage of damage. Stage 1-3 means she will be starting preventive antibiotics (weekly courses to keep her system clear of anything that may start to grow). Stage 4 or 5 – she will need a surgery to re-implant her ureters from her kidneys to her bladder. This will be happening sometime at the end of this month – IF this current infection is actually clearing from the omnicef.

Add to this the fact that it is hard to deny that she is becoming more and more unintelligible in her speech and is responding less and less to hearing us call her name, and you have a recipe for surefire surgery at some point in the next two months. We go in for her hearing re-check on the 28th (the day before her planned VCUG procedure), and I honestly am not optimistic that she will pass. In which case her ENT will want to re-implant her tubes AND take out her adenoids. Resulting in again a longer sedation, and more tricky surgery.

I do’nt know why its always Karissa. Kealey will go the whole year and have one nasty cold or strep virus at some point in the winter, and it seems like Karissa is always battling something or other. And she’s SUCH a little trooper through it all. I wish I could describe her strength for you. She has such an amazing heart and spirit – she teaches me so much.

I cannot believe how long this post is – but its good to have this out. It helps process it more in my own mind to get it all written down. so if you’ve endured this far, thank you. Thank you for your prayers, for your concern. I will keep you all updated as I find out more info.

I havne’t even gotten to our fun family get away this weekend! i will have to blog that tomorrow. It was a lot of fun, and I definitely recommend it for any family who just needs a quick break from reality. It really helped me “reset” in a mental way, feel more ready to take on this week, and the start of school, the start of losing my baby all day every day to the school system. Ok i am going to start crying all over again and three breakdowns in one week isPLENTY for me.

Hope you enjoy more of the random pictures.

May this be a blessed relaxing week for all of you.

Go hug your kids and tell them you love them.

love,

me

Welcome to my random tirades for today.

We’ll start with this lovely weather, shall we? Walking outside to feed the dog at 7:30 this morning, I knew it was going to be bad. Just checked – we’re at 94% humidity. And they felt the need to re-iterate this with the written forecast:

“Partly cloudy with isolated thunderstorms possible. Humid. high 87F, Low 63F.”

Really? It’s going to be humid??? I am terrified to go outside again. It feels like my lungs stick together on the inside. It’s getting harder to breathe inside, in the air con; I truly fear what its like outside. I could NOT get my breath last nite at Ben’s softball game and i hate that panicky feeling. Perhaps this would be a good time to evaluate the efficacy of actually staying on my asthma meds as preventive measures vs. overdosing on them in emergency breathing situations. But you know, why change now after 32 years with it?

Ben injured himself pretty bad last night in the softball game. His calf muscle has been bothering him for  a few weeks (so he tells me last nite after t he injury), but running down to 1st he heard it pop and was almost instantly down (of course he made himself safe first so he got the hit not the out). I ran over and could see is spazzing around and could just tell he had done some serious damage. From what I can feel he tore it in two places, pretty wide, long tears of the fibers. He is limping around and I do feel sorry for him. I give him HUGE props though for actually admitting that he realizes that compared to the aches and pains of pregnancy and childbirth that he has nothing to complain about. What a good guy, hey? So pray that his leg heals up fast, because his patience to actually LET it heal is about nil. I was so excited that he made it home a day early though – those are always the best surprises.

and OH. MY. LORD.

The Junior is coming to town! I may just turn into a Sox fans yet. I am going to be very very torn at the game on the 18th. I will have something to cheer about almost every inning though! Ok weird confession time – when I can’t fall asleep at nite, instead of counting sheep, I create my Mariners dream team lineup in my head. I have to rotate my outfielders just because there are so many good ones to choose from. i went through a long period where Junior and A-fraud were off the list because I was so mad at them for selling out. But then I realized that my team wasn’t the same without them. They bring a certain panache to the team that just enhances their fielding and hitting abilities. Clearly I need more stuff to fill up my free time since THIS is what my mind wanders to in moments of insomnia. It’s a good line up though. I may have to create a separate blog page to spell it out complete with the diamond to show positions. but this i can promise you. I-Chee-Rooooooooooooooooohhhhhhwill also be right. He is untouchable in the position. And he still doesn’t speak a lick of English but God Bless him anyways.

(don’t say I didn’t warn you that it would be random today…)

just a few more things:

to the policeman i argued with yesterday in Oak Park, my apologies. it was probably wrong of me to sit and argue with you, but let’s face it, i was right. there was not a no parking sign there, meaning, even more so since i wasn’t technically PARKING, that I did have a right to leave my running car there while I ran in to get something. Let this be a lesson to you to not argue with a pregnant woman with three kids in the car on a hot humid day in July. Thank you and good day.

I cannot believe I am almost up to 5000 visitors to my little site! I mean, i am sure I am past that since I just installed the stat counter in March after the whole hacking fiasco. But still. Its a fun thing to watch that little number go up and up. i will have to do something for the 5000th visitor celebration. I can’t tell who it is from my stats, but we’ll do some kind of fun prize/game thing. I have no idea why i am so giddily excited over the fact of hitting 5000 visitors.

And lastly – the picture project for Leslie – for those who have asked. it will basically be an album of all the images I took at their session this spring, plus the CD of all the images, and a dvd slideshow of them set to music. It was the album/matting that was causing the expense, but I believe I have found a slightly less expensive alternative, while still providing beautiful archival quality for them. So thanks to everyone who volunteered to help out. If you still feel like donating a few dollars towards the project, paypal me at terrarist101@gmail.com and just make a note that its for the A family project.

And because text only posts are boring, I’ve just added a few recent favorite pics to this post to keep with the random theme.

And one last thing (i think), for those of you who have been wondering how i am feeling (since i have notedly avoided going in depth on that topic in a few days), I am doing good. My emotional upheaval is at this point more for those who WERE close to her, for the closure for the church body, the healing that will come there. Physically, the contractions stopped and I am dealing only with the usual braxton-hicks and other aches and pains of being pregnant. Thank you so much for those of you who were concerned and your prayers – they meant a lot and helped even more.

I think that is all for the randomness for the moment. But you never know. i may just decide to come back and bore you all more later.

have a GREAT weekend! Stay cool…

terra