Why I want pie crust ...

I figured I'd better post this before everyone killed me when we had a baby and forgot to say anything. We found out I was pregnant at Christmas so it was a little soon to say anything, and then ... time just kinda flies, I guess! So here's the little biscuit at 11 weeks. I'm now 12 weeks and should have some new ultrasound pictures next week. I went to the doctor last week for something totally unrelated to the pregnancy, and with Kaiser no matter what you need to be seen for, if you're pregnant, they send you to an o.b. So since I hadn't had an ultrasound yet the gal decided to go ahead and check on the baby while I was there. It wasn't my regularly scheduled appointment so I had Sam with me, which actually turned out to be really neat. He's been a super good boy about going to the doctor with me, and really patient about waiting as long as there's some books or toys or a table and chairs he can play with. (Regardless of what I bring from home for him to play with, it's just not good enough at the doctor!) Anyway, they have to turn off the lights to do the ultrasound so they were worried Sam would be scared. I just pulled him up on the table with me and he watched the baby on the "t.v." It was really neat to see him so excited; "A baby! A baby!" I had to keep looking around his big head to see it! Now he loves looking at the pictures of the "baby" and telling the story of how we saw it on "t.v." at the "doctor." Hopefully we'll know in April if it's a boy or a girl, and we should get to meet her/him in August. :)

Good things come in small blessings

Well Friday morning came and I went to my appointment with the surgeon and the rep from Precision . The Surgeon took out the stitches and then the tech went to work. As he brought the stimulator power on and started to program it, I felt for the first time in 6 years a glimmer of hope. I have been waiting for 2 years to get this technology installed into my body just so I can try it out to see if it would work, and now is the awakening of the technology and it is blocking the pain signals that for 6 years have been tormenting me. The bliss that I have felt and the training time since, trying to get the level dialed in to block the pain but not feel the pulses, have been fun. Isn't it a wonder that God knows just what you need but allows you the trials to prepare yourself for the receipt of the wonders of his love and blessings. Even though Man "made the advancements" God has had his hand in everything being developed. He has placed the right people in the right places to be able to intelligently research and develop the wondrous machines and medicines necessary to enhance the lives of his children.

I Love the Lord so much and am so thankful for his involvement in this whole process. I have been so blessed lately that I can scarcely hold in the happiness I feel. Since leaving the military I have tried to make my life conform to the way the Lord and the Savior would like me to be. He blessed me with Sue and thusly with two wonderful new sons. With the two blessings I had already, that made my life so full and robustly happy. Now as the years that have passed, I have been blessed with more loved ones in the form of three wonderful daughters-in-Law that I see in my eyes as new Daughters. My Life I know will still contain more trials and struggles, but I rellish the struggles to overcome them because I know that they will ultimatly make me stronger in life and stronger spiritually.

Thank You Father for your Love in my life.

Playing 'Up'

As you can see, I've been in some intense thinking modes. I just applied for a Doctoral Fellowship, a cash award to assist doctoral students with their research. It is a competitive process, where you submit your application, and wait until Spring to hear if you've been chosen from among the candidates. Whenever I'm involved in intense writing/thinking academically, I learn new things about myself. Here's my latest thought (besides 3rd time's the charm):
When I was a kid, I dreamed of being heroic. I read biographies--every one with the blue denim cover in the school library--of famous people who made a difference. That's the kind of hero I wanted to be.
While that's who I wanted to be, I had a lot of fears that held me back. What if people found I wasn't really smart? What if I couldn't perform? If I couldn't do it perfectly, I didn't want to try, at least not in public. I missed a lot.
Having a marriage fail amid a relationship dynamic that was toxic to self-worth changes a lot. Failing at a very important life and eternal task led me to rethink and rebuild who I was. As the marriage ended, I had developed a new strength that began with understanding my worth to God. I determined that I could try new things. If you don't try, you'll never know what you can do.
This carried over into my teaching career, to a point.
Let me stray for a moment into a sports metaphor to help illustrate the core of my recent thinking. In High School, Freshmen generally are restricted to Freshmen teams and aren't allowed on Junior Varsity or Varsity teams, at least in my era. A few kids who are really good, are invited to 'play up'. When you are invited to play up, there is the very real chance that you won't see much action. The choice, then, is to stay with your lower level team, but be a star, or play up, but risk being overshadowed and even outplayed by the older players while you're learning. Guess who has the opportunity to learn more? Yep, the one playin 'up'. They get to test themselves against better players. More resistance over time builds muscle.
I realized recently that my style has been to stick with what I know, to stay with the Freshmen. The old adolescent fears kept me from becoming the person making a difference. Ever since coming to Utah, I've been coming closer to leaving the fear of failure behind for good. In my doctoral program, I'm finally 'playing up'.

3rd time's the charm

'Third time's the charm' as the saying goes. But what makes the 3rd time lucky? I was thinking about my 'lucky' 3's. It took me 3 times of starting my Bachelor's degree to finally finish it. I started at BYU as a 17 year old, a little later at CSU Sacramento until I got pregnant with James, and then finally finished after the divorce--graduating in 1986. Same for my Master's. One start for School Psychology/MFCC, a second for Educational Administration, and finally, the completed degree in Educational Technology. Significantly, Steve is my third try at marriage. So is it all 'luck', a 'charm'?
Luck connotes something whimsical or out of control of anyone. I am certain that in all of the cases of being successful on the 3rd try, volition was involved, and therefore luck was, well, out of luck. What was operational in all of the examples given was choice, hope, and perseverance.
With my Bachelor's degree, I chose to begin, and chose an environment that was nurturing to my awakening spirituality. I also chose to take a moratorium, afraid to make a mistake in my choice of career. But I also had hope that I would eventually figure out my path, and I would return to continue my education. Before I knew James was going to be born, I felt it was time to forge that path. I still did not know which direction to go, but the hope for a future of fulfillment was guiding me to that choice. When I found out I was expecting, I continued my plan to return to school, knowing it would only be for a semester, again with hope that my opportunity would come in the future. At that season, I chose to mother my children.
The connection between choice, hope, and perseverence for me is this: whether our choices lead us in the direction we had thought, or in some other way, a vision or goal will keep us focused with hope. By keeping that positive vision and joining that vision with perseverance, we make that 'charm' occur.
So third time's the charm? No. The third time is simply often the culmination of choosing not to give up, having hope for the important goal to be fulfilled.

Steve Here

Well the Stimulator is in and if it works as well as it did on the table I am going to be so happy next Friday when they turn it on permanently.
First they gave me a Spinal Block, which numbs you from the injection site down, so I could be awake for the whole thing. then they gave me some sedation so I wouldn't be anxious. That just made me loopy. I sang and hummed the whole time. I bet they thought me quite mad. After the y opened me up the Surgeon nipped off pieces of the Lamina so that he could have better access to place the wire. The wire is like the one Josh showed me in the beginning except that it had a paddle at the end of it that had 16 contacts on it. when the surgeon placed the wire then the Precision tech fired up the unit to see how well and how close she could get to the final program. She and the surgeon workes together until I was tingling from Paddle placement point to my big toes. She then turned it off and the surgeon placed the unit inside my right side. The tech then turned it back on and made sure everything was still working and then turned it off.
That was the neatest operation that I have ever been able to observe. I stayed overnight in the, get this, Maternity postpartum ward. How neat is that. Not everyone gets that privilege. Except maybe evey woman who has ever given birth.
Today I don't feel too bad. I feel better after every "nap",4 hours or more. I am going to try and cut down on the pain meds so that I can be able to drive myself where I want to go. The only thing that I feel is the fact that my whole body seems to be bloted or swolen a bit.

Well I will let all know how things are going so that you know how I am doing. Thanks for all your prayers, they have worked very well. Thanks to Richard and family for visiting me in the Hospital. Expecially thanks to Ben for the cute card he made me. It will be going into my keepsake file.

Our Christmas Tree Adventure

Saturday we went up to Apple Hill to get our Christmas Tree. James, of course, had lots of homework, so we got a pretty late start and knew we would have to pick out a tree fast before it got dark. We were looking for the hunt n cut farm we usually go to when our car started overheating. FAST. We turned on the heater, but before long the heater was blowing out cold air. (That can’t be good.) We pulled over in a drive way. I was ready to call Triple A and go home, but James was adamant that we would NOT be leaving without a tree. So while James let the car cool off, Sam and I walked up the hill to begin Christmas Tree browsing. It was almost dark. We were the only ones there. The farmer was very old and seemed a little worried that we wanted a Christmas Tree so late. James talked to a young guy that was visiting the farmer’s family and wrangled some water to fill up the radiator. Soon he found Sam and I, and together we found the most beautiful Christmas Tree EVER. While James strapped the tree to the roof of our little Honda Civic, the farmer called Autozone to see if they were still open (it was almost 5:00 for goodness sake!) and his wife gave Sam and I a little bag of apples. We stood around the car for a few minutes discussing how to get to Autozone and putting giant pickle jars of water in the trunk, while Sam showed me over and over, “A doggie! A doggie! A doggie!” The farmer noticed and called “Shirley,” his aging Britney Spaniel, over to entertain Sam. Sam was thrilled (like he never sees dogs or something) and was happy petting Shirley while the grown-ups did whatever it is that grown-ups do. I was keeping an eye on Sam and Shirley while I put our apples in the car. Shirley was old so I wasn’t sure how much she would appreciate an almost 2 year old touching her, but since the farmer called her over to visit I figured she must be used to grandkids. I reminded Sam to be gentle even though he was doing a good job of being gentle, and he thought it was hilarious that Shirley kept putting her itchy bum in his face for him to scratch. Sam turned to look at me, thrilled that he was petting a dog, just as Shirley thrust her bum into the side of Sam’s head. Sam started to fall and reached out to grab Shirley’s bum. Shirley didn’t like that. She moved quick for such an old gal. Not a little warning snap either. She told Sam what was up … a few times. At that point the farmer was standing at just the right angle to block my view of where Sam and Shirley met. I thought she just snapped up his hands good. But after a minute or two I could slowly see she got Sam’s face. He got a good bruise and a little blood right under his eye, and another bite mark over his nose. It was pretty heartbreaking to see him so sad, especially because the poor little guy didn’t even do anything. He was being gentle, darn it. Well, that got us on the road quick. We kinda felt like we got took. We paid $53.00 for the Christmas Tree! But we didn’t really have much choice, and like I said, it is the most beautiful Christmas Tree EVER. It was nice that they gave us water and a few apples, but then their dog tried to eat my kid, so … I’m not sure who came out on top. Oh, I forgot the funniest part. There was also this raggedy looking orange barn cat there. Sam kept showing it to me, “A cat! A cat!” When Sam was crying from his brush with death at the jaws of Shirley the old farmer went and got that nasty cat and tried to bring him over for Sam to pet! That thing was hissing and growling and scratching that poor old man! Too bad I didn’t see him do that BEFORE he called Shirley over, then I would have known not to trust his judgment in his animals’ temperaments!
Well, if you’re feeling bad for Sam I’ll give you the whole story so he can REALLY get some sympathy. That same morning when we were taking Daddy to work, Sam fell down the cement stairs out front and got a good bump and road rash on his forehead. Then the tussle with Shirley happened. Then, back at home, he fell off the kitchen chair he wasn’t supposed to be standing on and got a bump on the other side of his forehead. The next day he decided to give himself a haircut … in the tub … with the razor. Then today (please don’t call CPS) I accidentally shut the tip of his thumb in the car door. Yep. Poor guy.
So … our Christmas Tree Adventure didn’t really go as planned … (I didn’t even get any pie, darn it!) But it made me really thankful to be a girl. When the car broke down, other than offering my Triple A card, my work was done. James had to figure out how to keep us safe and not lose all our savings towing and fixing our only car. My job was to have a good time with Sam while Daddy made everything better. It was a little disappointing not to have the family outing we thought it would be, but we did have a good time. When I was a kid, having a disaster like that would have definitely ruined the whole day and everyone would have hated each other. Sam’s probably not old enough to even remember this trip (which may be good to prevent a future dog phobia) but even if he was old enough to remember, I’m sure he would remember it as a fun trip. He had no idea we got ourselves in a mess. He just thought we were taking an extra long walk to get to the trees. And he really was excited to pick one out - that was neat - to see him “discussing the merits” of each tree in different tones of nonsense adjectives. Sam is very proud of his special tree. He gets excited every morning when he sees it. He likes to turn the light switch on to light it up, and we catch him smelling it and (for some reason) blowing on it – not sure what that’s about, but it sure is cute.

Indiana Jones, starring Ben Cleverly

Here is Ben in his Indiana Jones costume. I cropped his cousin, Parker, out because he was Scooby Doo and I didn't want any confusion since Ricky was also Scooby Doo