^^^These pictures were recently taken at Blake's preschool after a heavy rainstorm. My life over the past month has looked a lot like this picture. My family has had a flood of trials. An absolute flood. Not just one or two big storms..... I'm talking an entire hurricane. I've been stressed, worried, sad, nervous and everything in between. However, even though a month ago my life looked like these pictures- an endless flood of water gushing into our lives, I soon realized how many blessings we have. After the rain comes the rainbow. The waters have receded, and things are starting to get back to normal. Why has life been so crazy over the last month? Well, lets take a look.
These pictures and events might not be in perfect order, but my future self will get the idea.
First, our garage door has been slowly cracking. The actual metal in one of the panels has been bending the wrong way which put enough pressure on it to start cracking the panels. We have been using it like that for a long time, but eventually the garage door got to the point that it needed to be replaced. No big deal... its a bit costly, but in the end we will be getting a new, pretty garage door. We ordered it over a month ago, so hopefully it should arrive from the factory soon. Jason installed the opener himself (which he bought using airline miles). The opener is pretty fancy and won't open if it detects too much pressure (and our broken garage door exerts a lot of pressure) so I have been parking outside since we can't really use the door until we get a new one (which takes two months to be built and shipped to us). Again - no big deal - I've lived most of my life without a garage to park in, it is what it is. Its a bit of a pain in cold or rainy/snowy weather but we will manage.
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| old garage door |
Then, my tire popped while I was at Wesley's swim lessons. My tires were old and balding and it was time to get new ones... I had just been procrastinating. AAA helped me put my spare on so I could get home. The next day I went and got new tires - again, no big deal. It is just another expense that is not very much fun.
While all these things were going on, my mother and Jason's mother were really sick. My mom had C-diff which is a really dangerous intestinal infection. She endured a painful and frustrating battle for months before finally recovering. I was worried about her, as well as my Dad (I didn't want him to get it). Also, Jason's mom fell in March and broke her leg. She was bedridden and her health quickly declined. She suffered one heath scare after another and was in and out of the hospital due to so many complications that even the doctors didn't know what was going on. Some of these health conditions affected her brain and mental abilities which was one of the scariest parts. Jason was able to go down over the Summer to see her, but the boys and I never were able to make it. Her condition got worse and worse and she was admitted to the hospital again in August. This time she was so sick that she was put on a ventilator. For weeks we worried about her condition and didn't know how to help from afar. The doctors performed a ton of tests and pumped her full of medication, but her health still deteriorated. No one knew what was happening, and it was a very stressful time. I felt so bad for Jason's sister Jennifer who was pregnant and had to take care of Sheryl. I can't imagine the stress placed on her. The doctors finally decided that the fall, or all the stress surrounding it, triggered something in her body. She had been low on nutrients due to her gastric bipass surgery she had ten years earlier, and the stress triggered these enzymes which basically caused her brain and body to shut down. Eventually Sheryl's organs started failing and her heart couldn't take it anymore. On September 8th we received the devastating call that she passed away. I will remember that moment for the rest of my life. She was only 55, and its not something any child should have to deal with at such a young age. Jennifer was understandably having a hard time so Jason and I volunteered to help plan most of the funeral services and help find a crematorium. Along with Jennifer's input, we helped to plan the service including planning the songs, finding speakers, and arranging the musical number. I helped to make the slide show and print some pictures for the table as well as find someone to help make the program. Probate, life insurance, and the overall finance situation has also been a big headache (to put it mildly). Jason and Jennifer have been working really hard to try to sort everything and and get paperwork started. Its going to be a VERY long and stressful process. However, I've been amazed at how well Jason, Jennifer, and alex have worked together. They have taken care of their mother so respectfully and peacefully. As devastating as it is to plan a funeral for a loved one, I feel like they have worked together so well and things have been going fairly smoothly for such a messy situation. I will write another post about Grandma Burnell and all our memories with her.
A week or two before Grandma Burnell passed, I developed a cold. Again - no big deal, and pretty mild in the scheme of things, but this cold did not go away. I think all the stress of life lowered my immune system and it took me about two weeks before the actual cold went away. I was finally feeling better around the funeral, but there were some sick family members there and I think my weekend system caught another cold. This time it turned into a sinus infection that lasted another two weeks. For an entire month I was sick, and I don't do well with sinus issues. I teach singing time at church, and that is a struggle for me to do while sick. I also volunteer in my kids' classrooms and I had a coughing attack while trying to help some kids with a project. I couldn't breath for weeks which affected my sleep. I was going to bed at 9:30 and still feeling exhausted in the morning. Being sick just sucks the life out of me and adds to the all the other stress! I finally researched my symptoms and bought some new medication, including a net pot. After trying these new remedies, within a few hours I felt MUCH better. Today I still have a cough but I finally feel normal again, and it is glorious!
Backing up a little bit - about a week after Grandma Burnell passed away, I did a load of laundry. I was washing the boys' uniform clothing - many of them brand new. Once the dryer cycle was over, I opened the dryer and much to my horror I discovered a crayon was in one of the pockets and got washed and dried. There was orange waxy crayon on EVERY single uniform item - most of which were white or light colored. I was already stressed, and this just added that much more frustration to my life. It was late at night, and the boys needed some of the clothing for the next day. I quickly googled ways to fix the mess. After staying up another two hours, my home remedy didn't appear to work. I had just used buckets of boiling water in my machine, along with a ton of other detergents and solutions. I felt defeated. I threw the clothing back in, dumped in a ton of dish detergent and vinegar along with more stain fighting items and I turned my washer on the highest, hottest setting - sanitizing/steam cycle. The cycle took THREE hours, so I went to bed hoping for the best. In the morning the clothing looked much better but was still obviously stained. Luckily the boys had a few clean uniforms in their drawers to wear that day, and I decided to try one more load. I used the heavy duty, super hot setting and again poured in all sorts of stuff. After another couple hours the clothing actually came out wearable. Not perfect, but pretty darn good. Only one item was satined so badly I had to throw it away - the rest were either completely clean, or the stains were so faint my boys could still wear them. I was SOOOO happy (and exhausted). That took a lot out of me!
That night as I was driving the boys to scouts I got a call from Jason. He told me the basement had flooded and he needed me to come back home. Once home I discovered that our water heater had died and spewed its wrath all over our basement. Luckily Jason caught it early (within hours of it happening) so there was no mold. We spent a couple hours using our carpet cleaner and shop vac to suck up the water. After realizing it was too big of a job to handle on our own, we called a restoration company to come help. Within an hour or two they came and stayed until around 10:30 or 11:00pm. They ripped out carpet and baseboards, and placed a TON of fans down there as well as a dehumidifier. They moved furniture, and made our life so much easier. The next day Jason and I had to laugh at our situation. We made bets as to what would go wrong next. While in the middle of planning a funeral, we now had to deal with a flooded basement and no hot water on top of everything else. I'm so thankful Jason was home (he took two weeks off of work after his mother died). If he had been traveling I would have been stressed beyond belief. The restoration company was so helpful and dried out our basement quickly. We attended the funeral, and after returning home our insurance company came out to asses the damage and finalize our claim. I was thinking they would pay to get our original carpets cleaned (since the restoration company saved them) and new baseboards. However, to my surprise the adjuster said our insurance would pay for new carpet for the entire basement (even the areas not affected because they can't replace just a tiny section), and a new coat of paint for the entire basement. This situation was a giant hassle, but in the end we will be getting an almost new basement out of it, so I'm excited about that. Also, to save money Jason decided to buy and install the new water heater himself. Again he used gift cards that he purchased using airline miles to buy the water heater, so it didn't really come out of our pockets. This was a pretty cruddy situation, but there were so many positive aspects that it made everything so much easier. It could have been so much worse and I am beyond grateful it wasn't.
Just when I think nothing could get worse....it does.
The afternoon that we arrived in California for the funeral Chase started complaining of a tummy ache. I figured he was car sick and just needed to rest. That night we wanted to go out to eat with family, but Chase still wasn't felling well so Jason took him to the hotel and I took the boys out to eat with family. We went to a nice Mexican restaurant, but it was busy and had very slow service. Wesley and Blake had fun with cousins but we returned to the hotel pretty late. That night I was EXHAUSTED from the long drive and from staying up so late with family. After being asleep for only a few hours I awoke to the sound of Chase moaning. He said he had to throw up, so I staggered out of bed and stumbled to find something for him to throw up in (in the pitch black of the hotel). Luckily we were at Residence Inn with a kitchen and I quickly found a big measuring cup. For the rest of the night I got very little sleep as I helped Chase dump out his cup and clean it. The poor guy threw up more times than I can remember. In the morning I was a zombie, but I had to wake early to go pick up the program from some dear friends who made it for me. Jason stayed at the hotel to get the boys ready. After returning to the hotel, Jason informed me that Chase had diarrhea in his church pants and still wasn't feeling good. I was panicking, but Jason was a calming influence on me. I didn't know how we would manage taking a puking, poopy child to the funeral. We HAD to go to the funeral, and I didn't want to ask any of my family or friends in California to have to watch my sick child. It was a very stressful situation for me, and I already had enough stress from the last few weeks. We took him to the church, and on the way he had another accident. Luckily it was just in his undies, so we took him in the bathroom to clean him up and put him in jean shorts. After, we laid him down on the very back pew with his throw up cup and hoped for the best. Jason sat with him, and I sat in the front near my parents and the kids. Thankfully Chase did well during the service, and even fell asleep right after so Jason and I were able to eat at the luncheon and talk with family. We turned the lights off in the chapel and closed the door and he slept for a good hour. (Another HUGE blessing). After the luncheon we took Chase back to the hotel, and Jason stayed with him so I could take Wesley and Blake to Jennifer's home to spend time with family. Later, I picked Jason and Chase up and we put Chase in Jennifer's spare bedroom and I went out to dinner with family while Jason spent time with his family. Wesley and Blake had a blast, and I felt so bad for my sweet Chase that he had to endure a stomach bug the entire weekend. He wasn't able to sing during the funeral with the other kids, nor was he able to spend time with his cousins. I was sooo worried Jason or I were going to get sick on the drive back up, but thankfully no one else got sick. Chase threw up again on the drive home, but once home he started feeling better. It was a long, exhausting, and emotionally draining weekend. However, the memorial was wonderful and uplifting, and despite having a sick child, the weekend was overall positive.
After learning about Sheryl's passing, so many people extended their love. Our primary dropped off some flowers with a cute poster signed by some of the kids. Many of Jason's coworkers sent flowers and cards. The outpouring of love has been much appreciated. Life is hard. Life can be sad, and stressful, and overwhelming. Jason has been a huge calming influence over the past few weeks. He deals with each situation as it comes, and doesn't stress too much about past issues. Everything works itself out, and our trials in the storm really do help us appreciate the calm.
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