Ordinary Time

There are seasons where life seems to jump from one appointment and event to another without a break and seasons that are calm and one can stay home and do important things like fold the laundry. This month doesn't seem like it is shaping up to be the laundry folding one. Not only does H. have surgery this afternoon (it was rescheduled yesterday, after I had arranged my calendar for Friday, of course), but I already had an appointment on the books with an ENT this morning for A. For the past couple of years, we have been trying to manage what we thought was asthma in A. Whenever she would run, she would feel incredible shortness of breath and be forced to stop until she could breath again. First step was the pediatrician who put her on inhalers, one to use before exercise and one to use every day. She tried these for a while, but they didn't seem to be making much difference, so we were sent to an allergist. The allergist did a whole allergy screening and also gave her a nasa...

I would rather not have to repeat the events of this morning. The plastic surgeon tried to turn the port, but with no success. Lots of tears, but nothing else. There is also still fluid building up around the port. And the spot I noticed around one of her incisions that had started oozing over the weekend was also filling with fluid. It turns out that because of the rotten sebaceous skin that the scar tissue in that area was getting too thin and does not have any elasticity, so it was starting to tear. The result of all of this fun is that H. will now be going into the hospital on Friday to be sedated so the doctor can clean everything out, flip the port and see what's going on there, and take out the compromised skin... all in an effort to save these expanders, use them, and be done. She will have another drain in that will come out next week sometime, but certainly not before it stops filling. All of this makes my weekend even crazier than it already was. D. is in a show all w...

K. is very, very close to having the whole reading-thing 'click'. You know, where a child suddenly can read words automatically without having to stop and sound every single sound out. He also is getting better and better at writing. Here is what he brought to me this morning. (It says, "My dad is the best") I love this little boy.

Nothing says the start of the Advent season like over 300 pounds of frozen beef appearing on your doorstep. Don't get too excited, it wasn't some anonymous ring the doorbell and leave half a cow on the doorstep event. I knew it was coming because I paid for it. Every year a friend and I split a full beef and another half between us giving us each 3/4 of a full beef. This lasts us for the entire year. Both of us have various Iowa connections, so we work with a farmer there (the farmers have changed over the years) and then one of us drives over, visits whichever friends or family we have there, picks up the beef and drives home. This year, my friend was having Thanksgiving in Iowa, so she brought the beef home. This is why, if you had dropped by our house on Saturday night, you would have found me and J. and B. standing in the basement, a cooler full of beef at our feet, looking at two very full freezers. We were discussing where on earth the last of the beef was going to go...

The obvious thing to do with Thanksgiving leftovers is to make turkey sandwiches with cranberry-orange relish. Some people in my house truly believe with every ounce of their being that turkey sandwiches with cranberry-orange relish are the whole reason we fix Thanksgiving dinner in the first place. In fact, there have been some years when we have been away for Thanksgiving without sufficient leftovers that we have come home, cooked some turkey and whipped up some relish to satisfy the cravings. What? You do not make cranberry-orange relish?! Well, you need to, because how else will you make the delicious sandwiches mentioned above? It's easy, here's how J.'s aunt taught me to make it. Take a bag of fresh cranberries, wash them, and pick out any bad ones. Then take a navel orange and chop it coarsely. Now put all of this into your food processor, add sugar to taste (I usually put in ~1/2 cup) and let it get chopped until everything is chopped fine. But if you have had t...

The right port in H.'s head continues to be a problem. Last Wednesday, I felt it and could feel the rim of the port (it looks like a little circular disk if you see one not in someone's body) and so decided that I would go ahead and try to do the expansion. I got everything ready and had H. sit down. Now, as much as I don't like doing this, I'm pretty good at it and have never had a problem getting the needle in the port at the first attempt. On Wednesday, I tried five different needle sticks and couldn't find it. H. and I were both close to or in tears by the time I decided I just wasn't going to find it. This morning was the first time I could call the office and when I talked to the nurse, she mentioned that she thought perhaps the port was flipped due to all the fluid that had been around it. The nurse had time to see us, so we got ourselves ready and headed back up to the office. I knew the nurse was going to try to turn the port manually if it was flip...

For home and love and all things true, (There's been lots of game playing.) We give our thanks, O God, to you. (And silver polishing) For food that's sent to us each day, (20 for dinner... the tables are ready) (Plates and serving dishes waiting for food) Accept this grace that we now say. (And a little Minecraft) (Don't worry... it's still festive. They're in front of the fire.) Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours.