we buy a home today

i have been horrible at blogging lately. i mentioned on my other blog that i didn't want to have to blog the heartbreak of not getting our house in case it fell through.

well, that also left out documenting the process if it didn't - and it didn't, or did, anyway - it's real. we bought an 85 year old craftsman bungalow that we adore and can't wait to move into.

it's been a glorious process, everything we needed was at hand - it's a beautiful story of redemption and i really want to take the time to document it. i've been journaling the process, but i need to flesh it out.

we've been given $ for a reno of the kitchen too, so we won't be moving in right away. we've got all of july to fix it up, paint, prettify and move. i couldn't be more excited.

it's been 14 years since we have had a home to call our own.

i have blogged more details on my other blog - leave comment if you don't know where that is and i'll contact you with the url.

thanks for celebrating with us. couldn't have done it without you.

capturing the memory

i'm at that point in parenting where i'm not "allowed" to talk about my kids anymore. i hate it. so i'm blogging this here so that i remember it.

we took a drive yesterday after a picnic just because we all so wanted to be out and not heading home yet.

we drove through a part of town we don't frequent often and there was a couple playing tennis.

buck says "OH, i didn't know they had tennis courts here"

mom - "i didn't know you liked tennis buck, did you want to learn how to play"

buck "oh yeah mom, it's like ping pong, only you get to stand on the table!"

:D

frozen by thinking

okay - have identified a major character defect in my life - too much thinking. not enough doing. damn. s.o. s.i.c.k. o.f. i.t.

we have looked at MORE HOUSE than anyone in the history of this little burg - and because i don't have a deadline i can't act. i keep saying 'maybe something else will shake loose' or 'this one just isn't it' or 'i don't have peace' - but mostly it's just that i think too much and do too little.

HATE IT!

we're walking to see a privately listed house tonight - i'm too ashamed to call my realtor to re-see the two that i'm THINKING about now... i've wasted so much of his time. he's a great guy, and so helpful - but i'm pushing the edges of his patience, i can tell...

i told him i was going to come down to his office to do some filing or something... i know it's his job - oh well. i have made a ton of progress on my step 4 by NOT THINKING about it and just doing it - so small victories i guess.

just tired of being frozen.

happy blogiversary to me...

i have ALWAYS forgotten my blogiversary and wanted to make sure i didn't this year. emerging sideways is five years old now and i can hardly believe it. this place has been a wonderful tool that opened up the world for me when i needed it most.

the greatest gift it has been was showing me that i wasn't alone. i have always felt so unique (and not in a good way) and the beauty of the internet is that it explodes the world by drawing it closer together. blogging is a self-sorting endeavor. readers stay around if they resonate with what you write, and that usually means you are kindred spirits on some level. finding kindred spirits has changed my life forever.

thank you.

i have not needed this blog as much lately as i used to and have even debated deleting it at times. and that may still happen one day, but for today i am going to celebrate five years of pouring out my heart and soul and trying on new ideas and thinking through life and working my program. five very good years.

image of three very good gifts blogging has brought me - erin @ biscotti brain, deb @ abiding and the non-blogging but still ultra wonderful lynne (mike todd's sister, who i met blogging)

recovery math

gosh darnit, people like me

i have always had a hard time with affirmations. my rational mind coupled with my bullshit meter really make it difficult for me to not roll my eyes when i even think them or the few times i've been brave enough to look myself in the eyes in a mirror and say them OUT LOUD. i have gotten better, but still find myself thinking back to my beloved stuart smalley memories and feeling pretty pathetic.

so i was surprised at how moving these affirmations fell into my soul. they are beautiful and artfully composed - and my favorite part is the instruction to "click boldly" for the next affirmation to appear.

the one that i really liked was

"My Higher Power demonstrates through me what He can do"

realmental
affirmations

come on...

(cross posted at my other blog too)

Argh.

There, I said it. Aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh.

I hate when I find out information that I don't really want, that I wasn't ever looking for and that could, dang it all, change everything.

I was doing some research for ADHD children and came across The Feingold Diet. I read about it and found that there is a part of the diet that eliminates all foods with salicylic acid - and as a side note mentioned that people with allergies to N.S.A.I.D.S. (non-steroidal anti-inflammatories - asprin, ibuprofen, etc.) should probably avoid these foods too.

WHAT!?!?!? How did I not know this? Don't you think this would be something an allergist (who told me I was allergic to NSAIDS) might mention this say, a dozen years ago when he told me I could die if I ever took Motrin again?? Do you know how extensive this list is? Can you imagine never, I mean NEVER, EVER eat a peanut butter & berry jam sandwich again? Never enjoy another raspberry (my favorite of all time) or a fresh picked strawberry, or living in wild blueberry country, never, ever, ever have blueberry pancakes again? No more almonds, no more avocados, red grapes or cherries.

How 'bout trying to give up cantaloupe, raisins, dates, olives, mushrooms, green peppers and tomatoes - I will never have pizza again? COME ON!

I almost hope that it doesn't make me feel better when I give it a try. I can't even imagine how I could live like this. I am the girl who lived on highly refined sugars, chocolate and fast food for most of my life and gave that up, lost 14 sizes and enjoys a life filled with amazing fruits and vegetables now. I haven't had chocolate in 9 1/2 years - and now I have to give up peanut butter & raspberries too? DANG!

Shall I keep going? How 'bout mustard, dill, curry powder and Garam Masala - I'll never get to have Indian food again.

This is brutal. I've been avoiding it for over a month now, I don't want this information and I want to give it back. But deep inside me I am suspicious that I am affected by this and my body needs to find out if it feels better without these foods. So I am praying to be willing to be willing to attempt a fast. I can't even imagine what I could eat, there is just so much that I love now that I will lose.

As someone with an eating disorder, messing with my food is a scary and overwhelming prospect. This will take a lot of intense prayer and dedication and I just am not sure I'm up to it. I just really want to know if it makes a difference. I know that I feel better without all of the junk I used to have in my life. And yes, there are times that I miss chocolate, but I don't miss how crazy it used to make me feel. So this will be a journey, and I don't know when it will actually begin.

First I have to find some alternatives, good alternatives for my standard meals and snacks. I have found that creating a vacuum is not healthy for me and impossible to maintain over the long haul, unless I replace what I am reducing with real, live options. If you have any recipes or suggestions I am open to them. And any prayers and encouragement would really be appreciated.

the peace of a closed door

found out early friday saturday that the woman who originally offered on the house met her conditions. after i went through friday with a very experienced carpenter i was actually relieved. he helped me to understand that some of the repairs, if they uncovered problems could easily extend the house well past it's possible equity and far beyond our limited resources.

i was surprised at how okay i was with the info. reaching and hoping doesn't mean i turn off my brain - just that i risk and stretch. thanks so much for the sweet comments on the last post. nice to know that my absence at blogging didn't mean a loss of my favorite readers. but it did mean the loss of my memory to actually check in to see the comments :p aging brains are for the birds...

what was really cool that came from this experience is that i am no longer afraid to ask for help from people like carpenters and builders and the local man who has been shepherding us through this process has been so affirming of my abilities to handle these men. i had asked him to be the general contractor if we ever got the house - and he assured me that i was up to the job and that he'd stand behind me and coach me if it ever came to an incidence where i felt bullied or over my head.

the other cool thing was that we realized that we really liked the new, modern feel that this house had because of the interior renos - things we might not have ever done for ourselves as we can tend toward the "good enough, and that'll do" side of things. we realized that there are other fix-ups out there - and we just need to find one with some good bones to start with. amazing what a bit of stretching will do a for a soul.

miles and miles have passed

i can't even remember the last time i have sat down to really blog. life has become so full, in a good way, but it has kept me from this thing that i love called blogging. i was emailing with erin (biscotti brain) and told her that in the last 24 hours i feel like i've given birth to myself.

on friday i found out that the university i attend was looking for a kind of dean of students/chaplain position and both liam and a good friend encouraged me to apply. i know they have some internal people applying for the job, and they will most likely have a much better chance, but i knew that my gifts were a good fit for this position and that the process would be helpful for me. i realized also that i have not done a resume for myself in 20 years! 20 years! i have not been paid to work (except casually for projects) in since i had kids and our daughter just turned 13. previous to that i worked for the same employer for 6 years. needless to say it was an effort to turn all of the volunteer work i have done into a career.

some good friends held space for me and challenged me and gave me the much needed push to put this together and yesterday i faxed it off to the president of the school and felt a mental exhaustion very similar to the physical exhaustion i had after giving birth to my kids. i know that this was part of the "thrive" process and i think that april 20th, 2009 was a birthing day for me.

yesterday we put in an offer on the home of our dreams (needs lots of work, so there might be a few nightmares before the actual dreaminess happens), applied for a mortgage and i applied for TWO jobs! after i sent off the resume i was blog reading and one of the gadget blogs i read is looking for an editor. i could do that job for free (don't tell them) because i would enjoy it so much, and even sending off the email was fun. don't know if any or all of these doors will open, but being willing to risk was so important.

the house we had been waiting for (it was a bankruptcy of a failed flip by one of our good friends) finally went on the market last week, but i couldn't move forward on it because i truly believed in my heart that i did not deserve to live in such a grand home. one of my best friends here was furious with me for thinking that way. when we went to move forward we found out that there was an accepted offer already on the house. i was crestfallen. i tought it was another couple from our church who i knew was looking too. i was at least happy that we were going to "keep it in the family". our broker though encouraged us to still bring our carpenter on site and put a bid together in case it fell through.

while standing across the street with my broker and carpenter a van drove up and a woman got out. turned out she was the lady who had the offer in - and she is a known quantity in the community. i was upset that it was not my friends who"won". i had met her casually years previous at her garage sale where she proceeded to tell me (a complete stranger) about her husband's nervous breakdown. i know if i skeedaddled she would give way more information to "my guys" there after i left.

i spoke with my broker later and he said that she (unasked) gave the information that she was having trouble with funding - so he said GET DOWN HERE MONDAY A.M. and we'll put the offer in... we did and while there may be others that offer that we know nothing about we have most likely the least unemcumbered offer of the bunch. we probably won't hear until later in the week as banks are very slow moving (as we know from waiting about 8 months for them to get the house on the market).

i realized after my friend was so furious with me that i had stopped reaching. stopped hoping. i had thought that contentment meant "making do" - and while there is something healthy in that, there can be a lot of broken too. i was content, and i was not "hope-less", but i was not hoping any more. i was not reaching. i was living in fear of disappointment. i told erin that in the 12 hours following i realized that i truly was strong enough to hope again. i was strong enough to have what i dreamed of, and strong enough to bear the disappointment of not getting what i was reaching for - but that it was the reaching that was the important part. so i have begun dreaming again.

so yesterday i felt like i grew up, stretched out my arms and said HERE I AM. as i finished my journal writing last night i wrote with a smile "I'm thriving! I'm thriving!" we'll possibly see how thriving and disappointment can go hand in hand next week... sigh. no risk, no chance, no hope. i want to live with hope, and i am strong enough to be disappointed.

Learning from temptation

this is something that has become one of my most useful tools of late - instead of shaming myself because of temptation i am learning what it has to teach me instead:

Desire is often talked about as something we ought to overcome. Still, being is desiring: our bodies, our minds, our hearts, and our souls are full of desires. Some are unruly, turbulent, and very distracting; some make us think deep thoughts and see great visions; some teach us how to love; and some keep us searching for God. Our desire for God is the desire that should guide all other desires. Otherwise our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls become one another's enemies and our inner lives become chaotic, leading us to despair and self-destruction.

Spiritual disciplines are not ways to eradicate all our desires but ways to order them so that they can serve one another and together serve God.

Henri Nouwen

fools names and fools faces...

buck came home from school tonight and told me he slugged a kid. in his eleven years he's only ever once been pushed to violence. it seems that two punks kids in his class chose today to call him names. one called him 'turnip' which has a form of our last name to it, the other kid started calling him 'tinker' and it ended up as tinkerbell. after about the sixth time buck gave him a shove and felt so bad about it he told me about it first thing.

i loathe violence. i know that buck is one of the tallest, most mature kids in his grade, so he's not going to get bullied, but pestered is sometimes as bothersome. i encouraged him to be more creative than violence, to use his wit and sense of humor to remind these boys that they should think twice about pestering him.

i asked what their names were to help him begin to think of better comebacks than pushing. as he told me the one little boys name, liam and i looked at each other across the room shaking our heads and trying to keep from laughing because the same exact thought ran through both of our heads. the little boys last name was erskine - i said "that boy should be very careful he doesn't mock last names because he could wear a doozie for the rest of his school days" of course, as good parents we did not breathe a word of it to him, but liam joked afterward about having to call the boys father, "er, mr. foreskin, it's about your son..."

porn and conservatives

no surprise to me - when my political & religious views were so bound up tight i had a much bigger struggle with porn. through my recovery i have learned that having opinions that are so stringent made me so legalistic - the steam has to go somewhere - and with their horrible view on women this isn't a shocker.

New Scientist - Porn in the USA - Conservatives are the biggest consumers

via queer messages

update on buck

i realized after ang left a comment that some people might not be on facebook where we've been placing most of the updates on buck. holding my breath as i type this, but he might actually be coming home TODAY. unbelievable.

his primary care doctors, the pediatrician and surgeon have both gone south for spring break and the plan of care they left seems to indicate that if his chest x-ray and CBC today pass muster and the extramural nurse is in place buck can head home today with a pump for his antibiotic. he will keep the picc line and they will be able to continue to draw blood there instead of him having to keep getting poked about.

throughout this his t1 diabetes has been the least of our worries. his bsl's and insulin doses have maintained consistent through this and it's almost been a t1 vacation of sorts - very little carb counting and for much of the time he was even on an insulin drip that they had honed to a science.

i have been up since 5:00 - pink has been sick with a head cold/cough/throat thingy so disinfecting everything was probably a good idea. keeping house hasn't been top on my list or liam's during this survival mode we've been operating in.

i floated around yesterday in space - got groceries and wandered the aisles of a couple stores. it feels surreal to not be constantly on alert - regularly engaged in the care and keeping of the other. it is a mode i function in well - and have a difficult time stopping. i don't know what this next week will look like. the kids are also on march break, so we will have a gentle re-entry. unfortunately the week after all three of us go back to school as my intensive begins monday - i have the easy stuff out of the way - it's the deep things i have left - and weeding through that with the kids home next week won't be the easiest - but i will manage.

i am looking forward to having two stimulating weeks for me though - i just wish i had a wife to take care of all of the stuff that needs to be done! dang.

Lenten truth

Sometimes we do Lent, sometimes Lent does us.

Ang York-Crane

f@%k lent

most of you know that i casually keep the church calendar and have made quite a point about lent these past few years. maundy tuesday caught me totally off guard - i was in line at the hospital caf and saw they were serving pancakes and just about cried. no ash wednesday, no planning, no praying, no intentional marking of these precious 40 days. i felt ashamed, guilty and frustrated. how could i have lost something so big. i joke that every year christmas sneaks up on my mother in law. like it floats around on the calendar like easter and she just can't seem to remember when it is.

that's how i felt with lent this year. i see so many delving deep on their blogs and i can't even read their beautiful lenten thoughts.

fuck the desert. i'm sick and tired of the damn desert.

i switched with liam yesterday to come home and collect myself for the weekend. there was a wonderful email from erin:

"Looks like Lent came early for you this year. I don't know that anyone would choose to give up their family (in that way) for so long, but it feels from here like some desert wandering."

it's exactly how i feel. (thank you erin). winter is kicking my ass and so is this hospital stay. i finally breathed fresh air yesterday (for the first time in a week) when i walked to the parking lot to head home. i'm wiped out. we just keep getting creamed by bad news and i'm sick of it - i'm sick of the pressure people around me put on me unknowingly for me to have some good news for them because they're praying so hard and their faith in god hinges on the health of my son. fuck the desert.

we were told yesterday that he could go home with an antibiotic pump on monday if he was fever free for 72 hours. we had made it 24. by yesterday at 2:00 when he spiked a fever we were both a puddle of tears. so much pressure on a 10 year old boy who wants to be home by his 11th birthday wednesday. fuck. fuck. fuck.

what could live in his body after all of the mass spectrum antibiotic to cause a fever after this just terrifies me. he has nothing left to fight with and neither do i. his spine is poking out his back like a baby dragon that has just hatched from an egg. my precious, vibrant, beautiful son has been reduced to an ashen, waxy, hunched over boy who is so tired of being a specimin that other people crowd around to poke, examine and talk about like he wasn't even there. i see him withdrawing and it frightens me. i am so damn scared.

i have a wonderful friend who tells me that the railing i am doing at god is precious to him - it shows how much faith i have. i just need spring, new creation and green right now. life, beauty, color. everything feels so grey. so i am taking in beauty, color and life for lent. fuck the desert. ya'll can nest there if you want to - but i've given up enough right now and i just can't spare any more.

powerlessness

i realized as i read my daily reading from yesterday (about powerlessness) that it is truly where i am at. smack, dab in the middle of powerlessness, more than i have ever been in my life. i don't like it at all.

in the midst of all of this i have realized that my addictions have morphed (with all of the push ups they've been doing shape shifting gets pretty easy) and begun to look much more subtle than they used to. i think the issue that i dealt w/ below has a lot to do with my sexual addiction rearing it's head in a very different version of itself.

on feb. 13th at around 7:00 i realized that i had a wicked case of heartburn. i haven't had heartburn in years. i got a wake up call when i faced the fact that i was truly tempted to purge. if you know my story you'll know how despicable vomiting is to me - but it was my addiction changing itself. it also meant that i had overeaten and used food to comfort myself that day. i hadn't eating any of my trigger foods, but i cringed at the thought of telling my sponsor about it and was tempted to lie (or omit) and i realized that if i had something to hide, it meant i had something to hide. secrets mean shame for me, and shame always plunges me back into my addictions - so i have reset my abstinence date to feb. 14th. clean abstinence is far more important to me than a big fat number.

i have been abstinent for one week.

i also broke the chain of writing on the 12th (think they might be linked?) i was just too tired to put pen to paper and didn't want to have to look at my fear for buck and the powerlessness of the whole situation. dang.

so, just for today i am embracing my powerlessness. i head back to the hospital and liam assures me that i will see a boy who looks far more like my son than the one i left behind. i had horrible sleeps while here at home. ironically i slept so much more deeply at the hospital. sounds strange, but i realized that it was the assurance that the nurses would come and knock on my little lounge door and wake me if something went wrong. when i awoke at home the fear and anxiety was oppressive. powerlessness. it has nothing to do with geography, but being closer to him in proximity will be quite a relief. thanks for your prayers.

and i thought i was cracked open last week...

oh my. this has been a hellish week. i feel like i've gone from the frying pan into the fire. our son buck (who is t1 diabetic) was vomiting all last week and they finally figured out that he needed to be in hospital. they didn't know what was wrong, but knew it wasn't right. fast forward - ruptured appendix and abscess removed and the recovery has been 1 step forward 2 steps back all week.

poor kid. it's excruciating to watch your 10 year old son have to endure this kind of pain, confusion and prodding. the medical care has been outstanding and he has a dozen of doctors on his staff. he's been in picu the whole time and the nurses have come to adore him. but somehow in the big important things happening to him they weren't understanding that he hadn't been getting real nutrition for the past couple of weeks - and so his body is literally breaking down. they put in a pic line yesterday and have started him on tpn - the most basic form w/out the fat so that he can slowly build back up what has been lost. how does a child in north america become malnourished? it doesn't make any sense. and please this is not socialized medicine - his care is stellar - it's just that surgeons have been so concerned that the infection in his gut would rear it's head and they would have to operate again that keeping him off of food was important because his bowel isn't working.

so he literally has 4 iv lines running into him and he's retaining so much fluid - it's horrible to watch this vibrant young boy trapped inside this body that isn't working. i hate this.

liam took two days off so that he could man the post as he heard in my voice that i was running so thin. i got my period yesterday and knew that i couldn't break down in front of buck so that i wouldn't scare him. i didn't want to leave his side, but knew that if i didn't care for myself i wouldn't be able to care for him. liam walked me to the car and as i got in i realized all of the picu noise, alarms and buzz was gone and i was truly alone. that is usually a good thing, but i have had so much head time lately - too much thinking and not enough processing - that i realized i needed some input. i turned on our 21 year old stereo and tried to find a station. i haven't turned on a radio in over 7 years. i really love silence and my thoughts, but knew that this wasn't the time for it. i was exhausted and needed to be alert for the next 90 minutes.

i found a dreamy enya like song and thought 'okay, this will work', paid for my parking and headed home. by the time i hit the highway the old stevie nicks song landslide was playing - i haven't listened to the radio in 7 years and THIS is the song that comes on the radio? i started to keen. i could barely see through my tears to pay the bridge toll and stay on the road. the next song was luba's "every time i see your picture i cry" and i began to scream "YOU CAN'T HAVE HIM" over and over at the top of my lungs.

i am flat out cracked open and have no place safe to hide any more. this has stripped me bare to my core and everything feels like it's on the line.

i am home, drinking my own fair trade scandanavian blend with my wonderful daughter on the computer next to me - we have been given the blessing of a snow day and will be spending it together some how. we both need this, and so i needed to get this off my chest this a.m. so that i could be present for her and not terrify her with the depth of my deep emotions.

please pray. i can't seem to find god in this. that is my prayer. (other than heal him NOW) - that we would all see the places that god is with us in this moment. to know that he has not abandoned us to our pain and fear. we have all been face to face with our deepest fear this week and it is horrible. i want to be face to face with god in this fear and i can't seem to find him.

clarity

ah the return of serenity is such a beautiful thing. why do i ever give it away?

i don't have a ton of time to tell you everything that has been happening since my last post - but purging that all out here was what i really needed. i was able to step back and look at it again and find the areas that were true, and the areas that i was truly being graceless about.

grace is such a beautiful thing.

stepping out of the shame and away from the addictive behaviour was also life giving. funny thing is that much of what was going on had little to do with the relationship - but so much to do with my compulsion to avoid what i needed to be working on. i was so enmeshed (thanks pen) in other peoples stories because i wanted to avoid my own.

i am working on fear in my step 4 and have class assignments dealing with grief and suffering - i was trying to avoid them like the plague - and once i realized it, admitted my powerlessness and started working my program again god met me in such an incredible way. i may blog about it, but it was one of the high points of my walk with god.

funny thing is that the rush addiction that i was getting from this was so similar to any of my other compulsive behaviors - once i saw it and asked for help the clarity that came after was so priceless that i realized that it had little to do w/ the cgf and far more to do with the walls i had placed around myself out of fear that god would not be trustworthy enough to meet my needs.

i have to go - wish i could pour it all out here - i just wanted to thank you for praying, encouraging, pushing and caring about me and my journey. have a lovely sunday!