Clearing Webs

Strep

A week ago I took a strep culture after 14 days on antibiotics. Tuesday the results came back negative. Wednesday the sore tickling began in my throat again. Today it full fledged hurts and I've got the first white spot. Again. Andy's leaving for Atlanta on Sunday. He'll be gone a week. My spirits are okay but I'm wondering what we'll do. Anybody have first hand info on the usefulness of our tonsils? My aunt sent a good book that says God didn't give us any extraneous organs. This makes sense to me. I'm sure Joel Kn has an interesting opinion. Pray for me, ay?

Happy

Happy first day of spring! I've finished preparing one of my five veggie beds and I'm so excited! My mom-in-law Joan gave me an awesome book for my birthday back in November and I've just been eating it up over the winter, filling the cold months with dreams of spring planting. Average last frost in Boise is May8, safe date May 27 so I've still got to wait a good while to get nice and into the planting, but my veggie beds are charted out on graph paper, the catalog's marked up with desired plants and I've been double digging out in the back yard. Oh, Joan, you'll be happy do know we've run into tons of worms this go around! Maybe some pictures later. Our dear old rechargeable batteries for the camera are giving up the ghost so we only have a short time before they die each time. Dream spring dreams of garden tomatoes, cukes fresh from the vine and dark purple eggplant!

A conversation with my husband, asleep

I crawled into bed next to Andy who'd been asleep for a while. He started up a conversation that went something like this:

"That's your problem, buddies, 'cause I'm debt free!"

Giggles from me.

"I'm talking about Robert."

"Who? You mean Keeper?"

"No, he's the guy who did half our car in Atlanta. We have three environments. One, two, three. The first is laser moire. We haven't defined the other two yet. Now do you understand?"

"Oh, yeah, sweetie. Crystal clear. Except who's 'we'?"

"Anybody! As long as he can climb a tree."

"Aa-ah." I love that man.

Imagini Me

Karen always gets me started on these. This one's pretty cool.

My house looks great and we're actually caught up on laundry thanks to our substitute gramma. I'm gonna go put clean clothes on the boys and scramble them up some eggs.

The Best In-Laws in the World

Now how many people are blessed enough to say that? Dana and Joan, Andy's parents, read about my lowness and got busy finding me a "substitute gramma". They found a reputable company that provides support services for sick folks and as of today at 2:30 I will have a lady coming in to help with anything I need her to do! Of course the mind reels at this thought but for now I think I'll have her help me clean and do dinner. I'm so relieved to have this help this week, especially as Andy has to finish up the final touches on his thesis despite not having heard from his adviser recently. His defense is in three weeks! Thank you Dana and Joan for finding a way to meet our needs from thousands of miles away. I'm continually grateful for what a blessing it is to have been given y'all as in-laws.

I had a nice little break down and cry last night, realizing a lot of my lowness is loneliness. It's hard to make close friends with the needs of three little guys taking up the majority of my energy and time. I've been missing friends in Atlanta during this sickness. Amy, who's getting to experience her first year as a stay at home mom (she's finally home all day and I up and leave!) and is now expecting her third baby in three years (hmm, sounds familiar). Katie, who's going through so many changes herself. Chana, who was in the process of adopting when to her great surprise she found out she was pregnant - with twins! Jess, who needs to trim my hair and whose new little girl I still haven't seen. Sylvia, whose bruiser of a thirteen pound boy (that's right - at birth! - and completely naturally delivered) is I'm sure making waves in her family of now eight. Hillary and Katie, who are due with their first kids soon. And of course I miss all my family - my mom who drops everything to come clean, watch my kids and take up all the slack and my sisters who are always there with good advice, tested experience and a group of kids to drop mine off with. I miss my church support: Donna, Miss Rachel, Miss Mary, Leroy, the Ulms. So, last night I finally realized part of my problem is loneliness, allowed myself to have a good hard cry over it, recognized God's plan in bringing us here and had a great night's sleep. Thank you all for your comments and emails of encouragement. What a blessing it is to have the internet. I can't imagine how much harder it would be to move thousands of miles away without the net as an outlet and way of keeping in touch (Amy, post more pics of Owen!).

Now, on with the good news. I am a week and a half into a Starbucks refurbishment. We've got a pretty hefty student loan and a goldendoodle in my heart, both of which dearly want my money. So the money budgeted each month for Starbucks have been severely cut to get thrown at student loan debts. When we reach a certain point in paying those off my dear sweet goldendoodle will come join our family as a reward. How severely cut have the Starbucks funds been? Well, this sister's been a daily addict for quite some time. I've determined to give up the ol' coquettish mermaid except for Sundays. And only one each Sunday, yo.

A goldendoodle who, if you get the right one, can have the personality of a golden retriever and the low-shedding, less allergy irritating hair of a poodle (I'm allergic).

Strep Fallout

Sometime a little before Christmas the whole Perkins tribe got sick. There have only been a few days since then that we've at least passed as well. I just got home from the doctor to have confirmed my fourth case of strep throat in two and a half months. Also confirmed Phin's fourth (fifth maybe? I've lost count) ear infection in the same time. He's going to an ear, nose and throat specialist to see about tubes. This is better in my book than months at a time spent on antibiotics that studies show only help half the time anyway. After fourteen days on antibiotics they're going to swab my throat again to see how it's faring then look into possibly removing my tonsils. Please pray for a clear, speedy end to these issues, that they won't interfere w/Andy's nearing PhD defense.

And pray for providence. I'm exhausted. I'm discouraged and without a large network of support out here thousands of miles from my friends and family. It's hard enough to keep up with the three boys, but for Phin to be in pain a lot, for me to be in pain and void of energy and for Andy to finish what's needed on his dissertation seem, well, just impossible at this point. But God is a God of impossibilities and this is an awfully small feat for Him. I know this and I simply need God's gift of faith that He'll continue to provide. I need to be willing to ask not-so close people for help, humble myself and rest. I feel the weight of the responsibility to keep the house from falling apart and the kids dressed, fed and non-tv addicts. Mostly I feel the need of keeping extra burdens off Andy in the final stages of his PhD. Not having a network to help keep the kids, maybe cook and help with cleaning makes me just go on. I mean, it's not like I can choose to simply not get up and feed the kids. But I've come to the realization that pretending I'm not sick doesn't actually give me more energy or wellness. So where does that leave me? At the bottom asking for that supernatural faith. Faith in my Father that I can stop. I can stop and He will provide. I'm done treading water. You make me float. God is enough and Lord knows there are much, much harder things in life that could be going on.

A medical type entry on my part wouldn't be complete with some sort of gross picture to accompany it.