Am I Calloused?

I knew infertility had affected me in many ways, but what I didn’t realize was that it affected a lot more people than just Marcus and I. Have I inadvertently made everyone around me calloused to pregnancy related things? Have I made my family and closest friends emotionally hard because of my suffering? I am going to be totally truthful here…that is why I have a blog anyway. It makes me sad when I hear pregnancy news, because it just reminds me that I am not pregnant and have yearned for a child for two and half years now. You don’t realize how much you really want something until you have to truly work for it and wait for it. Of course my first response is happy for whoever it is, but there is still sadness.

Another thing that I have learned through infertility is that people start ignoring you and leaving you out of pregnancy/ baby news. It will still hurt talking about it, but I think it hurts more being left out. I am speaking from my emotional state as of 11:25 on Wednesday and this might very well change by 11:45, but hey I have the right to change my emotional state from minute to minute, hour by hour, and day by day. But overall I want to know and not be left out like I don’t exist, because that hurts more.

For some reason I have been very emotional lately. Can I still blame it on the hormones???? Because I think my hormones are still all messed up!!!! On Sunday I had someone come up to me (this person doesn’t know anything about what we have been going through) and said that this past week she had a strong urge to be praying for us and wanted to know if everything was okay with us???? WOW, I am just awe struck on how God works through people. I was able to tell her that we have been struggling with infertility and she was also amazed and will continue to pray for us. God is working through our momentary struggles, I just have to make sure my eyes are open to see everything that he is doing in this storm.


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1) Mirror in the bathroom
2) Working toilet!!!!!
3) One on one time I get with my husband
4) Gods' Whispers of Hope
5) Close loving FAMILY

089

This weekend we tiled the bathroom, which meant that we did not have a usable toilet in our house on Saturday, Sunday or Monday (I am hoping that the toilet gets put back in tonight). We also could not get to our bathtub, so we would have to go to Marcus' parents house to bath and use the bathroom. NO, I would not go in a bucket or outside, but this might have come in handy (not really...that kind of grosses me out for some reason).

This week is going to be a crazy week for us. We have several things to do and appointments every day this week. I wrote down everything that we have to get done this week and it is kind of overwhelming. I guess I will just take one day at a time and try and accomplish everything that I need for that day.

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1) Amazing husband that helps me with my projects that I come up with
2) The tiling is finished in the bathroom
3) The help we had on Saturday teaching us how to lay the tile
4) Amazing church family
5) Secure and flexible job

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1) Awesome friends
2) Napoleon heart from Rao's that I ate in bed at 11:00pm last night
3) Fridays!!!!
4) Finishing painting in the bathroom
5) Loving family/friends that are willing to help us out with the bathroom renovations

Twitter and 085

I have decided to jump onto the twitter craze!!!! I am still trying to figure everything out, but I think I am going to like it! I would love to have more people to follow, so you all need to join in with me!

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1. I now have all of the lighting for the bathroom
2. Relaxing day at work (I am actually setting up my twitter account)
3. The nice hard rain that we had last night....it washed both of our cars for us!!!!
4. Getting $500.00 back from the hospital saying that you have overpaid a bill and then realizing that you forgot to write a deposit down in the checkbook....we have more money in the checking than I thought.
5. Sunshine after the rain!!!!

Grace in small things

This was originally created by schmutzie. I have no idea who she is or anything about her but I think this is a great idea. I am going to try and do this for the next 281 days or at least for the majority of the next 281 days!

What?
Schmutzie created Grace in Small Things as a daily reminder to take notice of the positive things we tend to overlook.

Why?
Grace in Small Things exists because we are choosing not to allow the noisiness of life to rob us of the time and energy to be mindful of ourselves and those we love and to recognize the grace that exists in small things.

Who?
Grace in Small Things is for YOU, because you deserve it.

When?
Grace in Small Things is a challenge for every day, because there's no time like the present, tomorrow never comes, and some other cliche about seizing the day. Oh, right: carpe diem.

Where?
Here!

How?
Grace in Small Things can be observed on your network weblog here, on your personal weblog elsewhere, in a notebook, or in smoke on the wind. The original challenge is to list five positive things every day, but we are a flexible lot, and since this is about finding joy, you should do it any which way that makes the most sense to you. There is a growing list of how-to articles to help get you started on the website.

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1. Leftover Lemon Artichoke sauce with wheat pasta for lunch, yum, yum!
2. The time I was able to spend with my grandparents playing games and eating pizza
3. The bathroom is almost finished (I just found out that we are going to have some expert help on Saturday with tiling)
4. Hazelnut Decaf coffee
5. It's Wednesday and I get to go to church tonight

Bathroom Redo!

The bathroom redo got bumped up even faster than we expected!!! I will start with the early wake-up call we got at 4:00 am earlier in the month. We where awaken by a very loud sound under our house followed by a continuous rushing/roaring sound. It took us awhile to figure out what it was, but as soon as we went outside and saw steam coming from under our house, we realized that we had a water line bust under our house. Well about an hour later we got the water turned off and tried to go back to bed. The next morning we called the plumber to come out and repair the line thinking that this would be no big deal. Well, when he came out he realized that it was a water line that was going to the vanity and he would have to tear out the vanity and the wall behind the vanity to repair the line. At that moment we realized that this is the prefect time to jump start the bathroom project that I have been talking about. We really were trying to hold off for at least another month or two, but I guess God has his own plans and this way I am able to do a lot of the work since we are taking a break from treatments. That night we torn out the vanity and ripped up the flooring. We also needed to have the vanity at the house the next morning for the plumber to install. We ran to the two hardware stores that we have in our area and decided on one we found at Lowe's. That next weekend I tore out wallpaper (the upper part of the wall was paitned over wallpaper). It took me the entire weekend to tear out the wallpaper and prepare the walls. I was very excited when I found out that the wall was finished behind the wallpaper, so I didn't have to put wallpaper back up!!!! Oh how I wished I would have tried to tear out the wallpaper before now.

Before:

After:

You thought you would see the finished bathroom, but we aren't quite finished with it yet. This has been a longer process than we expected!

Coming soon, we are hopefully installing the tile floors this weekend!

Storms of Life

Is faith, is growth going to be real in my life? All of a sudden I was put in a place where all I had read, studied & believed was put to a test. I was am in a storm. It was sudden, unexpected, and stressful. It all started with the word cancer and went onto the word infertility. We don't like the storms of life but God has a plan and in his plan he will work to grow us.

I have been reading through Mark and when I came to Mark 4:35-41, Jesus Calms the Storm; I got so much more out of it than when I have read it in the past.

Jesus put them in the middle of the storm to see how they would react, to see if they had faith. Following Jesus will put me in uncomfortable places to grow me. I don't need to blame God for the storms of life, I need to ask him how he can grow me in the storm and give me hope to see that there is an end. Jesus also cares for me in the midst of the storm. He hears my anxiety and responds to it. He has the power to make a difference. He might not take me out of this storm when I want him to or as I want him to, but he always makes a difference. He has given me the power of hope. I know my fear is what has kept me from releasing everything to him and giving him total control. I have to let go of my fear daily and give him total control. I have to let go of my plan for my life and jump into the life God has for me. God does have an amazing plan for my life! I don't want to ever lose my sense of awe of who Jesus is and what he can do in my life. Only Jesus can grow my character through a problem and give me hope in the darkest of days. Only He can do that! In Mark the disciples said "Who is this?", they were in awe of Jesus. I don't want to ever get familiar with that, I always want to have that sense of awe. That awe is a deep part of my growth in my every day life. My prayer is to allow God to grow me step by step, day by day.

I love the lyrics in "By Your Side" from the band Tenth Avenue North. I just added it to my playlist, so you are probably listening to it right now.

"Cause I'll be by your side, whenever you fall,

in the dead of night, whenever you call,

please don't fight these hands that are holding you,

my hands are holding you."

The basic message is you are not alone, love is here, open your heart and accept it. I don't want to fight the hands that are holding me. Those hands are strong hands, loving hands, hands full of mercy, grace and of hope.

28th Birthday

This past weekend was my hubbies 28th Birthday!!!! For his birthday he wanted to get some new golf clubs. So our first stop was Golfsmith in Webster. I bought him a driver for his birthday and he is still trying to decide on what type of irons he wants. I think him and my dad could have spent the entire day in there, but my mom and I were very hungry.

Then on to our next stop!!

If you don't know our area was affected greatly by Hurricane Ike, so we wanted to go home through Galveston and Crystal Beach to see all the damage. We ate at Gaido's in Galveston, which was absolutely delicious. If you have never eaten there I highly recommend it!!!! There bisque is the best I have ever eaten. The following are a few pictures that we took.

This is us on the Seawall

You prob can't see them but there are some surfers in the background

A cold front was coming in it was very, very cold and windy

This is the Hotel Galvez

It looked like they had some roof damage

All of the piers are of course gone!

But over all Galveston was not damaged that bad because of the Seawall

Us on the ferry, very windy and cold!

Here are some of the newer cabins that are still standing in Crystal Beach

I was surprised that alot of the newer cabins made it through the storm

The rest is just sand and pilings

These areas use to have cabins everywhere, now it is just pilings sticking up and sand everywhere. Did I mention that there is sand everywhere!!!!

This is what is left of the cabin that we would rent every summer

It is so sad that our beach is messed up so bad, but you can tell that they are working hard at bringing it back. There are already new cabins being built!