Sickies

The past couple of days have been rough. Fritter came down with something, and both Wednesday and Thursday night he hardly slept. Which, as I'm sure you know, means I hardly slept. He also had a small fever, so, suspecting an ear infection, I took him in on Friday. No ear infection, it seems like he just caught a nasty bug. All day Friday I just felt run down, and I assumed that was because of lack of sleep. Last night, however, I got a good nights sleep and today still feel pretty yucky. Then I noticed the sore throat. Yep. I'm sick too. So's my hubby. Between the three of us, I think we're going to run the store out of orange juice. :-)

So today, we haven't done much. Actually I haven't even gone outside, which is just as well seeing as it's (as my husband just said) "only 98". Funny. I'd planned on making it to confession today, but our parish offers it during mass as well so I think I'll go then. I don't really like doing it that way, I think it takes away from the celebration of the Mass and the sacrament of reconciliation, but it is convenient sometimes. Anyway, enough rambling. I hope you all have a great weekend.

Adjusting and Being Open To His Will

Do you ever wonder why God has led you to a certain place? I do. In fact, recently I have been doing that a lot. I still don't feel entirely at home here in Arizona. I talked a little before about how the weather is hard to get used to. Maybe I'm just being whiny, but right now it seems like a big deal to me that going outside in the summer is just not done here.

Also, I feel like I have to be aware of danger everywhere. Sure, I was not raised a city girl, My home town had a population of around 50,000 and the town we moved from had 25,000 or so (and that's when the students are there). When we first moved here, I imagined that every time I went to the park I would run into some sort of bad person. Every time I left the car in the parking lot of the grocery store, I just sort of assumed it would be gone when I came out. Eventually I realized that this wasn't true and I slowly adjusted.

Besides adjusting to city life, I have had to adjust to desert life. I'm not there yet. My hubby wants to go camping, and I would love it, but I know the moment I lay in the sleeping bag, I'll be stung by a scorpion or bitten by a rattlesnake. Really, if we just do it a couple of times, I'm sure I'll realize this is not true either.

I've been hesitant to complain or mention how it's been difficult for me. If I vocalized this then I feel that people would think that it's never going to work out for us here or I'll never adjust. I've even been a little afraid to pray about it, thinking that if I admitted these things to myself I would become unhappy.

Today however, I did it. I prayed and asked for some guidance on what God wanted from us here. I prayed for some peace while we're here. I even prayed that if we're not supposed to be here, that He show us His will.

Not five minutes went by before I received a phone call from one of the ladies in my church group. She's one of the few that are closer to my own age, and although her family is much bigger than ours is (right now) we seem to have quite a bit in common. She has been trying to set up some Evenings of Reflection for our parish as well as some sort of a Mom's Group and also wants to organize a couple of talks for the women of our parish.

Our parish used to be predominately a spanish one, and as such has quite a few activities for the spanish speaking there. It's a very vibrant community but recently the church has grown so much to include a number of english speaking families. Enough to add another mass in which 250 people come! But because this is a newer part of the community, there is not much for us to participate in.

So, she wanted to know if I would be willing to help her set up some of this, and also asked me to think about other ideas we could do to bring the people of the parish together. Of course, I said I would love to help.

Interesting, isn't it, that right when I'm feeling downhearted, God opens some doors for me. We may not be meant to be here for forever, but at least I know right now that God brought us here for a reason. He may only reveal Himself a little at a time, but He comes through when we need Him.

Heat Advisory

It isn't officially summer until June 21, but it already feels like it. We hit 110 degrees (F) today! Yikes! Tomorrow doesn't look much better at 108. I wasn't ready for this yet, and I'm still adjusting to the fact that we stay inside in the summer.

I feel like we should be out having picnics and taking walks and going to the park. Nope. It's too hot. We did all that when most of the country was freezing this winter. It was nice then to be able to brag to family that we were enjoying mid 60's while they were getting buried in cold blizzards.

Snowy, cold weather can be nice for a while. But there's only so much hot cocoa and snuggling under blankets a person can take. Ok, maybe you can never get enough hot cocoa, but after 5 months of cold and wind and blowing snow, a person tends to go a little crazy. So it was nice in April not having to deal with that.

It is strange to have things flipped upside down. I wonder if I'll ever get used to it. We don't tend to see cooler days here (by cool I mean below 100) until the middle of October. We have a long summer ahead of us.

To Tutor Or Not To Tutor...

I have been considering for quite a while to begin tutoring kids in my area in math. I do have a degree in it, and I've been thinking that I could help bring in a little extra money for our family. I was offered a "visit" with a 5th grader who has been having trouble in math. His mother wants a tutor over the summer to get him caught up and keep his brain fresh. It would only be two days a week for about an hour a day. The pay is ok, it's less than what most tutors charge, but then again, I've never really tutored before.

I have been going back and forth on this, and really need to make a decision soon. On one hand, it could be a pretty good experience for me. I could help a kid out (hopefully) whose been struggling and bring in a little extra for our household.

On the other hand the mother wants it to be after 5:30, which would enable my husband to be with Fritter, but would take away that time from my family. What about dinner? I know, it's only two nights a week, but still...

Also, self-doubt creeps in. Am I really cut out for this? Where would I even begin? What if I messed the boy up in math even more than he already is? I'm sure someone else would do a better job than I could. Sigh. We don't really need the money, and I do struggle as it is keeping up with things at home (although I'm reading a Mother's Rule of Life and trying to get better at my vocation).

Any advice for me? Have you ever done any extra work outside the home (or at home work) while balancing your family life? How did it go for you?

Clean Boy

While I'm at it, I decided to publish a couple pictures of Fritter having good clean fun. The first two are pictures from another example of what I mentioned before. The last is a classic bath picture, with some video to go with it.

Dirty Boy

Is it strange to say that seeing my son nice and filthy did my mother's heart good? Maybe, but it's true.

We went to the baseball park today so Fritter could run around. He's been stuck in the apartment with his sick mother, and today just happened to only get up to 83 degrees (F), so it was perfect. As much as he ran, he also fell, and the dirt is red. You can't really see it in these pictures, but on the side of his cheek he has a nice red dirt hand print.

Then, as I was putting the stroller away in the garage, he fell again. This time coming up with a black hand which he proceeded to use to rub his nose. Thus, the black nose.

If you click on the pictures you can see them full sized for more dirt!

Sometimes we need nice dirty fun.

Happy Mother's Day

I hope you all had a nice, relaxing day with your families. Check out this video. I couldn't get it to embed here, so you'll have to click the link. It must be the hormones, because it actually got me choked up. Not that it's sad or sappy or anything.

One of these days when I'm feeling better, I'll try to post something with a little more meat in it, but for now you'll have to settle for this.

God bless your day!

Curly

Just stopping in to say hello. I feel like I've been neglecting you all lately. I'm still pretty sick, and I haven't been doing a whole lot. Wednesday we had an ultrasound. Our little "Curly" as we are calling this baby right now (Fritter we called Hummer, and our miscarriage we called New until we lost him or her and then we named New Noel) is doing great so far. There was a nice little "whompa whompa" of 172 bpm. This ultrasound was so clear too! We actually saw Curly move! We measured 9 weeks and 1 day, which I think will push my original due date of November 29 more into December. We'll see.

Now I'm going to go take my morning nap. ;-)