All is well

I am still awaiting the results of the biopsy, but the procedure itself went very well. The most painful part was getting my I.V. My heart sunk when I realized I was getting a student. It sunk even further when he seemed to be having a hard time finding my veins. Now, I may not have huge veins, but they have never been that hard to find. He even had this nifty little red light thing to help, only....it didn't seem to be helping. After two failed attempts on my hand, and the experienced nurse being unable to snag my vein from his entry site (yes, I was cringing, and trying not to demand someone with experience) the student wisely admitted failure and let the nurse install one in another spot. I know they have to learn on someone, just not on me. I was a little afraid that this was an omen of things to come, but thankfully it wasn't. The biopsy went off without a hitch and very little pain. I will say that afterwards I felt like I had been punched or had a broken rib every time I took a deep breath, but no lung collapse and no coughing up blood - something that I guess is common after one of these. Now just pray they got enough to tell me what it is so I can get rid of it. 

I'm off to pick out some more paint colors. I'm telling you, we are getting an all new house, here. It's really kind of fun. Oh, and pray, because Dustin and I are finishing up the rest of the wood floor ourselves. We aren't fix it up people, so we shall see. It needs to get done, so we have little choice. I think it will be fun, personally. It's the sanding and finishing that will be more of a challenge - fear of the unknown, and all of that. :-)

It's the little things in life....

I know these don't look like much, but when our friend told me we now have stairs I felt like jumping up and down for joy and belting out the Hallelujah Chorus! To me it doesn't even matter that there are still staples sticking out of the landing and there really isn't a place to go to in the basement. It is stairs, and the girls can't fall down a hole or hit a gas pipe. Not that it was ever really uncovered, but still, the hole is gone!

There have been several other setbacks, but somehow it isn't bothering me as much these days. As I was sweeping my baseboard kitchen floor, which, by the way, hides dirt really well in case anyone wants to try it, I had to smile. In some ways it feels like we should just be starting out our married lives together. I was blessed to skip the apartment stage and go right into this house. A three bedroom ranch with a finished basement and relatively little work to be done besides paint. I never had to do a shared laundry down the hall, never had to scrimp for space or furniture.... Now I laugh. We decided to do our first year of marriage in our fifth. My basement is functional, but not as living space, We have blankets in our living area, and the girls have to be careful for splinters on the kitchen floor. Heaven help you if you step on the landing without shoes (something daddy is going to take care of tomorrow) because you most certainly will get an owie, as I tell Gabi. Our sugar container is in our bedroom and the beneath the sink contents are in the living room. Laundry baskets serve for anything but laundry, and Gabi's room is the catch all.... Yet I love it, because it is teaching me to be so thankful for all the little blessings around me. Not to mention that I get to buy new carpet for my basement, so when it is done it will be better than ever, and the mess is because I will soon have a beautiful upstairs. I can't complain. I am so blessed. 

Basement

The pictures say it all. We have a lot of work ahead of us. Pray that we make the right decision with what to do with the floor. Carpet is so expensive, but I miss this space so much that I hate to go without it. I know God is faithful, He will provide. :-) 

Pictures

Black, but no doors... these are all in the basement still, waiting for hinges.
The new wall color. I LOVE it. Tobacco Road is beautiful. I highly recommend it. 
Poor child, lost in the chaos. They are troopers.
Lovely me. No shower and soon to be covered in black paint. The only downfall of painting your cupboards black.
Always a big helper. Thankfully Daddy, Grandma and Teresa took shifts of watching my little girls. 

Pictures soon

I have taken pictures, but they are on my sisters camera. Just the fact that they are on another camera makes it too overwhelming to figure out how to download only a few and post them. I'll snap a few with mine today and try to get them on in the next few days. 

Where are we at? Still very much surviving. God is good. We still have some set backs - such as the fact that the rest of our wood came in for the floor, but.... oops, they accidently sent three inch, not four inch. I just had to laugh. Of course that would happen. What comforted me was the fact that God knew that the three inch ones were getting sent... it was in His plan, so I can rest in that. 

We still haven't decided on the basement. I'm leaning towards painting with huge rugs. The reason??? Even our neighbors who have a sump pump are having drain issues. I don't want to lay brand new carpet only to have more water when the city's drains are on overload. The good news is that we don't have to put a sump pump in, just try to stay on top of the drain. :-) 

Today is paint my kitchen day. I think. You never know with these things. I'm up early because everything that needed to be done is flooding my brain. Pay bills, sand down the cupboards, do I have enough rollers? exactly how much money do we have left for all of this? See, who can sleep? I know, don't worry. I'm really trying not to.

Oh, yeah. Health update. I went to my specialist on the 5th, and the news? After sitting in waiting rooms for around two hours I discovered to my relief that the growth in my lung hasn't grown. However, it hasn't shrunk, either. I have a needle biopsy on the 18th and then will probably go on antibiotics for six or so months after. Since he didn't even schedule a follow up after my biopsy I'm guessing that he is fairly certain we are dealing with a fungus. I am just so excited to have it GONE. Right now I have  perpetual cough that drives me crazy. But, seeing as that is my only symptom, I find myself grateful. What I'm dealing with is so little compared to others.

When it rains, it pours...

Quite literally for us. Sunday morning we were both up around two and discovered that we had water in our basement. This has happened before, just a minor drain back up. But this wasn't minor. The laundry room had about three inches of standing water, the computer section was soaked, the jungle gym room, soaked, furnace room, soaked, bottom of the stairs and two corners of the main room, soaked. I'm not proud to say this, but I had a mini breakdown. Dustin, like the dear, sweet, solid husband that he is, tried to calm me down. He tried telling me that Jesus is all that matters, I wasn't having it. No, I acted like a three year old throwing a temper tantrum. He finally just grabbed me in a bear hug and let me cry it out. Like I said, not pretty. I'm ashamed of my reaction now, but it was the final straw. I had a partially finished upstairs, a hole in my ceiling, everything so disorganized, a dishwasher and disposal that didn't work, and now my carpet in the basement was ruined.

A friend who does carpets graciously came over twice on monday to tell us what to do. Basically, throw out the carpet. When he was our huge dumpster in the driveway he thought I was super prepared for getting rid of the carpet. I informed him I had wanted to keep my carpet and the dumpster was for my walls and upstairs carpet. There is always a silver lining, and the one for this is that we already had the dumpster, and that I now have a couch in my upstairs and lots of places to sit because all the furniture is now up there.

I wish I could put pictures up, but our computer is disconnected, so they will have to wait. The good news is that all of our electronics are fine, the carpet is now in the dumpster thanks to my husbands hard work this morning. Ugg... stink, stink, stink.... we thought about salvaging it, but it was too stinky. Now we are thinking of just painting the basement and putting down some huge area rugs, just in case. My mom perked up at that because now the girls could rollerskate in the basement. :-) we did that all the time as girls in ours. Besides that, both my mom and one of my sisters tell me that carpet has tons of chemicals in it that you don't want to breathe in, probably good with my lung being what it is. :-)

Anyway, that is an update. I have to say, Monday morning I sat down in the midst of all my mess, opened my Bible randomly (something I don't do often, but had no idea where to start.) to Ps. 23:1. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." The commentary said, as long as you have the Lord, you don't lack anything. That was what I needed in my chaos. Tears started to flow, and my oldest comes up to me and just gave me hugs. It made me realize that everything that really matters was ok, and we would get through this..... This too shall pass....

You have to laugh...

This morning I read Hab. 3:17-18. The general gist is that "disappointment is inevitable, but discouragement is a choice." Only God could know how much I needed to read that in His Word. I now know that we will not have enough wood... actually ok by me. I've come to grips with it.  We had a college student graciously volunteer to come help us. Unfortunately he was unaware of the hole in our floor due to where the stairs will be put. It was covered by the floor paper and he went seat first through our ceiling in the basement. I will post a picture later. I wanted to cry, but it could have been so much worse. He didn't fall all the way through and the gas line didn't break. One more thing to fix, but on the bright side the floor looks better and better. One of the knot holes looks like the head of duck. Just a random fact. I'll post pictures later, but it looks like beautiful hickory, not at all like birch, good thing I like it, cause it isn't what I thought I'd be getting. Does that surprise you at all by this point? Not really. I'm just waiting to go pick up my couch and finding out that it is pea green. :-) So, I'm choosing not to be discourage, but to rejoice that we have this great house that keeps us warm and dry in the current torrential rainstorm. :-)