Just Another Journal Entry

With the best of intentions, I decided earlier this year to journal about my life while Seth is in Afghanistan. Looking back over the old posts, I don't seem to be doing a great job with this. It's been an interesting summer for me. I had a great time visiting with my mom & step-dad who came out for a few weeks, just finished a week of VBS at my church and am looking forward to a week in Pittsburgh later this month.

In the beginning of June, my kids finished school with superb grades. On the 3rd I had some surgery which so far has had the best possible outcome. I did have an infection from it, but once we figured out what was wrong, I got on the right medicine and it cleared right up.

I've had happy days and sad days during this deployment. I had a very sad day recently where a friend's husband returned from a month in Afghanistan. We were at the church when he returned home and I was there to see the family reunion. Truth be told, I was overwhelmed with anger and jealousy that my friend's husband returned home and mine was still there. The feelings were so bad that I couldn't even speak or look at them and I finally had to just leave the room before everyone in there saw me cry. Thankfully, God sees me through these difficult times. The next day she and I were able to talk and I told her everything and apologized. I'm so glad that I have a wonderful church family who is understanding and forgiving.

Tonight at the VBS Carnival, I was able to talk with my friend and her husband and truly enjoy the conversation. He told me that he had been on the base with my husband, but it's such a large base that he wasn't able to track Seth down. I really am happy and thankful that he is home with his family (and I really did feel that way when he returned that night) and think it is sweet that he wanted to go see a familiar face and try to say hi to Seth.

In 29 days, Seth will (hopefully) be boarding a plane to come home. It's not a permanent trip, it's just his 2 week vacation so he'll be going back over there by the end of September. But still, a countdown has begun. I won't see him right away, it will take at least 2-3 days before he'll be back here, but once he's in PA, he's mine, all mine! Oh, I'll share him when I feel like it, but for the most part, I'll be staying within arms reach of him. More than anything I just want to hug him and tell him in person how much I love him.

So for the next 29 days I'm trying to keep us busy. A trip to Pittsburgh, some fishing, even some days with friends are planned. I hope this month passes by quick so Seth can be home again.

Help Bring Him Home

My pastor and his wife are in the early stages of adopting a little boy from Ethiopia. You can read all about their family and the adoption progress at their blog Celebrate Every Day. Part of the process for them is to raise $15,000 in the first 90 days. They've already raised $2,000 but they still have a way to go.

In order to help them raise the money, the family is hosting several fundraisers. There is a yard sale on June 18 - 19, a Blog Auction, and a Father to the Fatherless Father's Day Fundraiser. Many people from our church and other family and friends have been donating for their yard sale, even my kids gave up some of their toys for them to sell. I'm also helping in another way, I'm donating some cards for the Blog Auction.

I used to be a demonstrator with a rubber stamping company. I never made enough sales to keep with the company, but I still love to stamp and make various cards and gifts. Christmas cards have always been fun to make and up for auction is a set of 35 Christmas cards that I hand made. "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given..." The card is set on red and green card stock overlaid on cream card stock. Unfortunately, the cream didn't show up very well when I scanned the card. The inside of the card says "Merry Christmas" in the same color green as the words on the front of the card. All cards come with an envelope.
Also up for auction is the "Handle With Prayer" cards. These are a single sheet and do not open. They are perfect for a quick note of encouragement. I love making these cards and sending them to others. There are 30 of these cards and they also come with envelopes.

Both sets of cards will be up for auction and all proceeds will be donated directly to the Peoples family. I will cover the cost of shipping to the winner of the cards. For more information on bidding on any item in the auction, or if you've got something that you would like to donate to auction, please visit their blog post Sew, Want to Help Too? You can also follow their progress by visiting their facebook page Bring Joel Home.

Baking Pancakes and Bacon

This morning I am cooking breakfast for the kids. We're having bacon and pancakes. Sounds like a normal breakfast, but I'm preparing this one a little different. I'm using 1 pan for everything.

I hosted a Pampered Chef cooking show a few weeks ago and purchased a Large Bar Pan. During the show, my consultant told us how we could cook bacon and pancakes on the bar pan. Well, I decided to take a shot and blog about my results.

The first thing I cooked was the bacon. I am amazed at how easy this was. Literally, put the bacon on the pan, put in a 425 oven for 15-20 minutes and you're done. The bacon does have to be put onto some paper towels to drain the grease, but I don't think I have ever made such straight bacon! It was delicious too.



Once the pan slightly cooled and I removed the grease, I cleaned the pan quickly and made the pancakes. I already had the pancake mix prepared while I was baking the bacon, so now it was time to cook. I poured the entire batch of pancake mix into the pan and put it in the oven at 350 for 15-20 minutes. When finished, I got one big pancake. I used a pizza cutter to cut squares out and served everyone breakfast at the same time.



A little thinner than I expected and they stuck a little to the bottom, but they did taste good. Actually, once I got the edge pieces out and used my little spatula, the pancakes came off the pan rather easily. They are a little light in color, but had I left them in the oven a little longer, I'm sure they would have browned more. But hey, they aren't black, and that's how my pancakes usually turn out.

The Real Test:
The kids liked the pancakes and the bacon and we enjoyed sitting down to breakfast together.

Ever heard the line, "Mom hasn't had a hot meal in 9 years?" Well, I can't seem to find the exact number from the movie A Christmas Story, but you get the idea. With this meal, I was able to bring out the pancakes and the bacon that had been left in my bottom oven warming, sit down and eat with my kids. By the time the meal was over, we still had some left that we can eat for breakfast on another day. Yum!

The Good, the Nervous and the Confused

On May 14th, kid #1 celebrated her 17th birthday. She lives in CA with her mom so we mailed her a gift and cards and called her to wish her a happy birthday. She loves the laptop that we gave her and I'm very glad we were able to chat for a while. Seth was even able to call her and talk to her that day. On May 20th, kid #3 celebrated her 6th birthday. We celebrated with a birthday party to Build-a-Bear complete with a bear cake. She had a lot of fun and she even got a special call from Seth as well.

With all the fun stuff out of the way (save a trip to Hershey Park this Friday), my mind is starting to worry. On June 3rd I'm having some surgery. It's going to be an outpatient surgery and supposed to be fairly easy, but with some pain and a moderate amount of recovery time. I'm not one for pain. In fact, I have a very low tolerance for pain. So when someone says they bounced back in 3 days, the same situation could mean a week or more for me. Yuck!

However, after weighing the pain issue, the post surgical side effects, being house bound for a few days and not being able to lift anything for weeks, I'm still convinced that this is the best course of action for me. Temporary inconvenience will give way to a long-term solution to some problems.

Going through this alone is making me a little nervous. Of course my husband won't be here to help me out, but not only that, I've made arrangements for my kids to be gone from June 3rd to the 6th. I'm already preparing to make myself as comfortable as possible. I live in a 3 story + basement house, with my bedroom on the 3rd floor and kitchen on the 1st. I'm not going to be up for walking steps, so I purchased a mini-fridge and have it hooked up in the kitchenette I have on the 3rd floor. I already have a microwave up there, so now I just need to get some microwave meals and drinks and I won't have to leave that area at all.

I've started cleaning like crazy. I know I'll be house bound and want to mentally be comfortable as well. I also know some people will be coming by to check on me, and I want the house to be clean when they come over. The best I can relate my insane desire to clean to is nesting before having a baby. You just want it all to be great. Why? I have no idea. I'm sure that anyone coming over will look at my not perfect house and go, yeah, she's recovering from surgery, it shouldn't be perfect. However, people coming over does present a problem of me staying on the 3rd floor and not taking steps... hmmm, will need to think that one through.

I now also have to take other things into consideration. I'm supposed to be walking in the Relay for Life on June 11th and 12th, but I am not sure where I will be in my recovery progress. For some reason, no one will donate to me this year. The team (in which I am captain of) has only raised $25 and there is only 1 other person who is walking this year, down from the usual 5+ that our team has. Is this a sign that our team needs to just take the year off? I don't know. I'm putting those ideas before the club members to get their opinions.

So many things rolling around in my brain. None of this even covered things going on with my hubby right now. It's been a very active week for him, that's all I can say. But active and fun to him equal fear and prayer to me. Please keep lifting him up in prayer with me, and please lift me up and I go through this surgery and have decisions to make.