2020

(Written Feb, 2020)


Hello and Goodbye to January 2020. Also, happy 10 years of existence to this blog...which has now become more of an online public journal.

I thought about doing my usual late Christmas/New Years letter here... as of course I completely failed to finish and get that out... but even then, my brain cannot think enough thoughts to truly make it worth the read.

2019 in review goes like this: I was pregnant, I was super sick, lots of puking and swelling, baby flipped herself breach in the last few weeks, couldn't be flipped back, had a c-section. Baby joined our outside world, we like her a lot. We traveled to Oregon for Thanksgiving and that was fun, we went to my parents for Christmas and all got the plague and nearly died (Thats exaggerated slightly) and then here we are. Exciting but not all at once. 

I have exactly one New Years resolution. Nearly three years ago I experienced a deep hurt by someone I had thought was a friend. But in an instant everything shattered and they said horrible things and expressed a deep hatred for me (which was very out of left field at the time) and I've been rather a mess ever since. And I've hated them in return, honestly. Their spouse hates me as well, probably more so than the former friend, so I've rather disliked both of them. And this year I resolve to be free of everything that has to do with that whole horrible encounter. 

I once thought I knew the key to healing and being whole. And perhaps I know it in my head.. obviously isn't Jesus the answer for everything? Sure. But actually, this one wont fix over night. And perhaps won't fix for years to come. My husband has been the most patient and gallant leader through it all, and I probably wouldn't care much to work on the resolution if I didn't see how much he loves me and hurts to see me still so wounded and broken still. 

I will say, that forgiving despicable people is 100% super natural. Especially when now, 3 years later, I still see them on occasion and they are still cold towards me and still have 0 ounce of love in their hearts for me and a lot of times they're just pouring salt on a still open wound. I don't expect them to change, nor do I wish for there ever to be any sort of restoration of the relationship, my wish is for my own heart to be completely whole and restored and for me to be able to pass them on the street and not remember so vividly the demonic encounter that was born straight from hell. 

Anyways, that is the most honest, live look into me.  

Thankful

A few weeks ago as the snow was beginning to melt and leave muddy residue everywhere, my sweet husband graced us with a visit at home over his lunch hour. As I was preparing his lunch, he paused at the bottom of our stairs to swipe his boots on the rug before running up them to retrieve his watch he'd left behind. 

We have white carpeted stairs and the whole upstairs is white carpet. A thick, plush, memory foam shaggy white carpet. We never walk with our shoes on the carpet.. not even our cleanest pair unless its a super emergency and super fast. As I looked up the stairs after Shane had run up them and observed the perfect muddy tread line from his boots, my initial thought was to be annoyed and a little upset. However, I also thought of how nice it was to have Shane home for lunch and how thankful I was that he'd made a special trip to see us and how I also own soap, water, cleaning agents and rags. 

Shane and I didn't have any children when the house was being built and we were given the choice of having it made to our specifications. My mother-in-law had 7 children of her own and advised strongly against white carpet, but I was absolutely sure that's what I wanted and I would simply train my little ones to removed their shoes in the house. I did not take into consideration at the time, how often Shane and I would be almost ready to leave to go somewhere and realize we needed to run up the stairs to get it and so we'd had to remove our shoes, retrieve the object, come down ,put our shoes back on.. etc. I'm thankful to have a custom house with fluffy white carpet, but, in all reality, its a thing that will get dirty and will probably need to be replaced in a few years. 

Anyways, so with Thanksgiving being right around the corner, I can't help but notice that my attitude isn't always that of thankfulness. I've been trying to make it a habit to find something for which I am thankful whenever a complaint comes to mind. i.e. I' m thankful I have a sweet husband like Shane to make muddy footprints on the white carpet when others don't have that.  I'm sure for everyone who has lost a loved one, they'd take muddy carpet footprints any day of the week just to have them back.

Life Changes

Here we are, 3 1/2 weeks into parenthood and loving it. I will admit, there are times I cry more than she does, but she is a very happy baby who is content to sleep most of the time... except at night time when I would like to be sleeping... hence the crying on my part. It's amazing what post-partum hormones and lack of sleep will do to one's emotions. 

Anyways, it was hard for me to transition from working in the Graber Heating office full time to just being home with a baby. Actually, Shane and I were responding to work emails and calls while we were still in the hospital.. the day she was born, even. 😬. ( She was sleeping.. we weren't missing anything). But in the weeks since being home, I've come to enjoy the quiet moments of being able to read and sip coffee and try and come up with a plan for supper. I'm thankful my appreciation of the taste of coffee came back as I could barely stand it while pregnant. Granted, the morning sickness stuck with me all the way up to the operating table while the were c-sectioning the baby out. As I started my usual morning dry-heaving and loss of stomach contents (Of which there were none as I had to fast before surgery) mid operation, I managed to croak out to the nurse standing nearby that I was going to throw up. The anesthesiologist sitting just behind my head heard me and jumped up to add an anti-nausea something to my IV line while the kind nurse held a vomit pan to my mouth. I was numbed from the neck down at that point and I can't say if I've had much weirder sensations than dry-heaving on an operating table when one has no feeling in ones muscles that are doing the dry heaving. But all is well and I'm happy to say that it has been a wonderful three weeks of not throwing up and I've never appreciated feeling so well as I do now. 

However, during my entire pregnancy I managed to avoid getting colds or bronchitis or the flu as it swept through its usual course of the seasons. But I was hit with a cold this last weekend and I'm not even sure how to handle it. I digress.

Baby is a doll. She's not much for crying unless I have to suction out her nose or give her a bath. She's slowly gaining weight and is 8 1/2 lbs these days! I'm amazed at how quickly she is growing and changing. Every mom says that, but its crazy when you see it first hand. I am still recovering from the c-section and am still sore and sometimes in pain but they said at least 6 weeks of recovery would be needed. 

Shane is the true people's hero. He is back to work full time and doesn't get to recover from middle-of-the-night feedings or diapers by sleeping a little extra like I do. Shane still wakes up almost everytime baby does as with me still recovering from the surgery, baby stays in a bassinet on his side and she hands baby over almost every time she's fussing. Plus, he often does her midnight diapers as he is very quick and efficient and doesn't mind them.  Poor man, though, I don't know how he isn't dying from exhaustion. 

Spring Update

The end of April has arrived and so has Spring... in theory. Granted it's only 50 degrees and it snowed on Saturday and I'm currently sitting in front of a space heater and have had to reschedule A/C checks no less than a dozen times already.

Fun fact, its best to check your A/C refrigerant pressures when its 60F or warmer. It hasn't really been warm enough.

Anyways, I've had a lot of people request updates on the Shane and Fern Graber household, so here I am.

We are having a little baby!!

 

Shane and I wanted a wee little babe for sometime before we actually got one, so we are very thankful. However, pregnancy hasn't been what I imagined it would be. 

Some women get morning sickness, some don't. It's different for everyone. I for sure got it... and still have it sometimes. I spent almost the entirety of January laying in bed and mostly only getting up  to throw up a couple 5-7 times a day. As you can see by the adorable pictures above, I would say the experience was worth it. And Shane was the real MVP as he lost 10lbs from me no longer cooking and him using all his spare moments to get me toast or water and do all the household chores that require standing up/walking/ movement. We are both fairly recovered. As of week 25 of being pregnant, the morning sickness has finally just only been in the morning and the throwing up part is starting to be only once a week. So that is nice. 

The trade off, it seems, for not being sick all the time is to have swollen appendages. This is fine. I have one kidney, so the blood pressure thing was a risk from the get go. As of recently my OB added some medicines to slow my heart down, which has lessened the balloon feeling in my feet. (I've also given up salt and am having to drink as much water as I consciously can) 

The main risk that my OB is watching for is preeclampsia... which, having two kidneys is usually better recommended for growing small humans, but we will see. 

Shane and I officially purchased our home in February. It is SO nice to just put nails in the wall and add curtains and things. We have yet to put shelves in our closets... so we still have boxes all boxed, but the warmer weather means the messy projects like sanding and painting will soon be done. 

We have a little pond that apparently has fish.. I've caught none, but I like the little paddle boat. 

Shane and I have taken up traveling again now that I'm feeling better. We've hit up Texas, Arkansas and Wisconsin and are planning for Minnesota and Nebraska in the near future. Just hitting a few local states and what not. Is third trimester considered home stretch? I don't know, but we're trying to squeeze in all the travels before we get there, just in case the swelling stuff gets worse and I'm nothing but a balloon towards the end of it.

When we're not traveling on weekends, we find ourselves somewhat busy during the week. We have Connection Group (Bible Study) on Tuesdays and Shane has basketball on Wednesday and our Mondays and Thursdays have often been hosting friends for a meal or meeting up for walks and things.

We are rather excited to see the weather turn warmer again. Shane's life dream besides being an HVAC man is to be a farmer. While owning our own little plot of earth is a step in the right direction, we've decided to start our garden next year.. once the ground is a little more landscaped and the rocks and construction leftovers are more more picked up. Although, I wouldn't put it past Shane to throw a couple seeds of corn in the ground off our back patio as corn-on-the-cob is one of his love languages. If anyone finds themselves with extra corn this year, if you feed it to Shane he will be the happiest of happy people to receive it.

In the meantime, we are loving our tiny little town of less than 1300 people and watching the sunset over the pond and working at Graber Heating. 

Jan. 2019

I've been meaning to write a little update since our little homeless bit back in October, but by the time we were no longer homeless, it was Thanksgiving which soon became Christmas and now here we are. 

But! we are no longer homeless! October/ November proved to be just as crazy as you would expect for two people who lived par time in a sketchy hotel in one city and part time in an abandoned house in another. So to catch you up, we had some VERY kind friends who happened to live 6 blocks over from our hotel who let us use their kitchen and basically their whole house, which, is how we ate our meals when we didn't have leftover's or dinner plans with other friends.

The most stressful parts were packing up every Wednesday night and Sunday Afternoon. We somehow managed and I only left Shane's kindle behind at the hotel ONE time. And at that the hotel people knew us well enough to tell us, " BTW, Shane's kindle is in our hotel safe."

After Thanksgiving, Shane and I caravanned ourselves the 4 hours from my parents on back to our new place. Which, we discovered was still a lot like a construction site even though it was complete. Due to the amount of dust and cleaning it needed, we opted to stay a couple days at his parent's and clean it in our spare time.

However, Shane's mom is a saint and ended up giving the place a thorough cleaning while we were at work which helped us move in faster. On top of that, she came over the first evening or two to help us haul box after box out of storage in the basement. 

It was a lot of work. And slow... still to this day we will wonder where something is and then venture down to the basement to see if we might find the box it's in.. I usually give up before Shane does. 

Anyways, we will hopefully be officially closing on this house by the end of the month.(We're crossing our fingers). In the meantime.. the good ol' township of Wellman has yet to let us have a mailbox. That's a long story. That is on our list of battles to keep battling.

December came upon us all rather quickly. My grandfather, Dr. Robert Kohl, went to be with the Lord and Shane and I drove the 7 hours to South Dakota to be with family for the funeral. Lots of tears were shed along with fond memories shared. It was nice to see all the cousins and aunts and uncles, especially with it being so close to Christmas. It has been so many years since we were all converged in the same spot close to the holidays and we counted it a blessing. 

Although Shane and I had thought our life of long weekend trips were behind us, the weekend following our South Dakota trip we returned home to my parent's house for family Christmas, which was only 4 hours instead of 7. We spent the week of Christmas with Shane's family back in Kalona and then went another weekend to my parent's to see some Florida cousins. We figure another 8 hours in the car is worth it when they had traveled 100s of miles more. 

After THREE consecutive weekends of driving a total of 30 hours, Shane and I finally spent a weekend in our little new town. Three of my siblings came to visit and we loved showing them the rolling hills and the bald eagles and deer and buggies and all the native things. 

It's funny to think how different the opposite sides of the state can be. Where I come from, Iowa is flat and you can see the lights of town 30 miles away just by standing out on a porch or a deck. There's only fields and little patches of trees where a house or farm might be and all the roads are almost perfectly North/South East/West, sectioning off the fields in square miles.
Over in my new neck of the woods, there are hills and trees and roads that curve and don't connect or make much sense. But it is beautiful all the same. 

So now we are to January. My new year's goals are:

1) To put things on my walls.. pictures, clocks...anything to make it look like we actually LIVE here. 

2) To buy this house. Which Shane's parent's have let us squat in since we arrived in town. 

3) Sort my socks

4) Paint some of our furniture to give it an update. 

5) Write more letters. 

---I'll probably come up with more goals throughout the year, but, I like feeling good about myself with I do all I resolved to do. 😊

The Graber Update

When one has spent the last three years with the steadiest 8-5 job/ routine one can imagine, quitting one's job takes some getting used to. 

Shane and I moved to Wellman (Kalona area).  However, we had some last minute changes to our game plan. 

It goes like this: Last January (Ten Months ago!) Shane and I were asking ourselves what it would look like to stay in the Des Moines area for another year or two. We thought about it, we prayed about it, and we came to the conclusion that April was too soon for us to move, but a year from April was too long for us to stay. We had to re-sign our lease if we were going to stay, but we didn't know how long we were actually going to stay. 

In February we settled on 6 months more, and turned in our new lease that would expire on 10/31/2018. So, we've known this was coming for a long long while. We spent some of our spring time looking for houses and figuring out finances. After checking out a lot of houses and finding nothing in our price range that didn't need major fixing upping, we decided we would purchase half of a duplex Shane's parents were building as a rental. It was in our price range and wouldn't need any fixing. 

Shane began working for a new HVAC company in June as a "Part-time" employee.. meaning, they needed him for summer help but knew he'd be leaving in October. 

Just after I turned in my official end date at my job, Shane's job asked what it would take to get him to stay to December. Our duplex isn't done being built so we talked, we discussed and Shane chose to extend his contract with his Des Moines company out to Thanksgiving in November, with the exception that he will work Fridays at Graber Heating and Air in Kalona. 

So, this past Saturday we moved all but some of our belongings to our new, unfinished house and returned ourselves to Des Moines. Shane continues to work while I alternate cleaning and scrubbing down our empty little apartment and reading a book while sprawled out on the carpet in the living room. Even now as I lean against the wall, sitting on the floor, I wish we had a chair or a couch or something, but it's not a bad gig. 

This weekend Shane and I will move the remaining items (Like the coffee pot and the folding chairs)  to our new place and next Wednesday will start our great adventure of living in a hotel and traveling back and forth to Kalona. We will live in a hotel from Sunday nights to Thursday mornings while Shane works in Des Moines and then we will work our Fridays and Saturdays in Kalona. 

After having traveled most weekends since before we got married, we thought that October would be our great month of settling down and not spending all of our money on gas tanks. As it turns out it is totally the opposite. We're not sad about it, though. If ever there was a time to have your company put you in a hotel for a month, it would be now, while we have no children and have more than enough experience living out of a suitcase.  

Obviously the meals part will be the trickiest thing. We will be bring our Instant-pot with us and mastering all the things. We also will be saying yes to any one who would want to take us in and feed us supper in the Des Moines area during that time. We will have our breakfast provided but no kitchenette or anything.. so it will be an adventure. 

On the weekends we will be staying at my sister's house in North Liberty that is in the process of being sold.. so we're not actually sure if we will be staying very many weekends there, but that's our current plan, basically. 

We will officially be in the Kalona area during the week times by the end of November. We are hoping our new place is finished being built by then. :)

So, If you're in the Iowa City/ North Liberty/ Kalona area, hit us up on the weekends. If you're in the Des Moines, Ames, Ankeny area during the week day, have us over for supper, we would not complain. :) 

The Beach Ball That Couldn't Stay Under

I slowed down blogging two years ago when I started dating my now husband just because I wasn't about to just blog about this guy I was dating because that would be weird. Somethings just shouldn't go on social media.. ya know? And then of course, we got engaged we got married, we moved to a new place and never got internet. So that was my main thing. But also, some really awful hurtful things happened/ were said to us shortly before we got married and that's something something to blog about either so that just created writer's block altogether. Like.. what do you even write about? Your day-to-day routine?

Since it all happened amidst the whirlwind of wedding things and big life happenings, rather then sit down and process what was said and what happened, it was easiest/ seemed best at the time to just shove it in a box and pack it all away in a closet, much like some of our beautiful wedding gifts that we will get to take out when we buy a house. Shoved to the bottomest, darkest corner of my mangled, gutted heart. I'd like to clarify that Shane was zero part of the hurt, at least he did not inflict it or cause it or provoke it. Although, him trying to see the very best in all humans including the ones who had done the hurting DID lead to SOME little marital conflicts about taking sides.

Let me tell you kids, if you get the opportunity to start your marriage without some horrible ugly flesh wound in your heart, do that thing. Because, it wasn't something that my husband could just make better. He tried. He's good at fixing things. Let me tell you, the knob on our closet door was loose when we moved in and since he didn't have a washer to put behind the bolt he drilled a hole in a nickle and that fixed it pretty good. He has re-installed and re-wired THREE of the light switches in our apartment and is on such good terms with our apartment handy-man that Brian (We're on first name basis with him now) is perfectly happy if Shane just waltzes into his shops and snatches up the part or lightbulb or whatever he needs to fix the next thing.

Anyways, good all fix-it Shane couldn't fix the fact that someone I had once counted as a friend had damaged and mangled me so completely. Which, also, love your friends guys.. but if you get some sort of warning sign that one of them might be going feral.. you should probably cut them off the two years before that happens...back when they were showing the signs and not the two years later after they say and do the awful things that are the very worst last memory of them.

So, here we are 14 months later. That's an awfully long time to go as a broken person who has to keep shoving it deep down just because you haven't had the time or know how to deal with that. Like, I've realized, there are some things in life that take very intentional moments to dig out and get rid of but, when you're first married, you just want to soak in every moment of the happy stuff.

Still not good right. While I would say that Shane and had a very blissful first year of marriage, we had never, and I mean NEVER had a single conflict in our relationship prior to that whole "whatever you would call the whole thing that transpired over the course of a couple weeks with the former friend." Literally never. We had been REALLLLLLY good friends for the 3 years before we started dating and we almost didn't date because it was too perfect and we didn't want to ruin it. And our dating relationship was perfect. Again, not a single disagreement, not even on where to eat for supper. But then, the thorn in our side showed up and stuck a wedge between us.

Our blissful first year of marriage has been 99% conflict free. Just like the diamond I wear on my finger. The tiny 1% of any conflict has been 100% related to the THING. Because I was hurt and Shane was hurt and Shane dealt with it because he's perfect and I didn't because I felt a little bit like God had something to do with it. And that sucked.

In an effort to resolve the thing, Shane and I sought some wisdom from some people we trusted and we prayed about it and then we met up with the offending party to resolve the thing and it got worse. I felt a little left out to dry after that whole thing. Half of me felt like God had to have been there because I said none of the cuss words that I had in mind the previous day, but the rest of me felt like God wasn't there at all and I had been completely left to the wolves.

So that's a hard place to be. I suddenly got a good glimpse/taste of how people can come to a KEY stake-in-the-ground moment to say, "This is where God left me and I that was it." And I'm not about to say that I gave up Christianity or my relationship with the Lord, but I put a lot less effort into the whole thing, that's for sure. I mean, Shane and I have read a chapter of the Bible together every day since we started dating. SOME DAYS.. we haven't, but over all.. we still do. We've read almost the entire Bible together.

I used to prayer journal, though, but I have temporarily retired that. Shane and I pray together every night, which has been mostly me listening to him pray and chipping in on "amen." It wasn't until this past February that Shane surrendered to the fact that he wouldn't be able to fix anything and made me start praying for the offending party myself. It tasted like vomit in my mouth, asking the Lord to look after them and bless them. It was like a punishment, my husband waiting until I had muttered out some sort of pray for OP before he would pray something more substantial.

But it worked, or is working. Little by little I've given a little bit more to the Lord and I've hated OP a little bit less. My heart is becoming less and less likely to irrupt in anger and bitterness and depression if the topic is broached somehow.

My dear, sweet mother-in-law recently did a thing I have not managed in 14 years. It was 14 years ago that I was in a car accident that mangled half my face. While they stitched me back up they managed to stitch in tiny shards of glass in the process of re-attaching my ear where it had become detached. I picked glass out of my face for a couple years until all that was left was deep in my ear. And there it has been.  I got my ears pierced like every other normal girl with normal ears does. My one ear could never hold an earring more than a day or two. The glass would always click again the earrings and get infected instantly. Plus, my ear is mostly swollen scar tissue anyways and an earring can barely hold the back on it without it falling off. Anyways, Recently, within the last couple weeks, I decided to start wearing earrings, just for fun.

The normal thing that always happens and has happened the last 12 years is that after a day or two, my ear swelled past its normal swollen self and became its infected self since the glass inside was all irritated. BUT, this time, I could tell.. it was surfacing! Shane's mother (I was at her house at the time) got out a needle and a light and successfully extracted 3 pieces of glass. TINY.. TEENY TEENY TINY pieces of glass. You could only see if the light caught it just light to make it glimmer. After letting the infection heal and my ear go back to normal size, I put earring in again and for the first time in all the years I've had earrings, my ear did not swell, it did not bleed, it did not hurt. I can currently squeeze my earlobe and there's not pain. Literally, I have lived more years of my life WITH glass in my ear than I have lived without. What a feeling!!

Anyways.. all that is to say, I'm working on getting out the shards of glass from when my heart was mangled by snow globe full of good memories shattering into a million pieces when my no longer friend decided to be a no longer friend. I've been letting the Lord have the deep dark corner of my bitter little heart and it's making a world of difference.
I think I've held on a little bit hoping that my former friend would magically snap out of the feral, totally-not-themselves state they're in and be the person I wanted to be friends with 5 years ago. But that's just not a realistic expectation. So there's a point where you just kind of have to lay them to rest with the good memories and hope to see their good side on the other side of eternity.

So that's where I'm at. I was a bottled up broken person trying to hold all of my honest broken feelings under the surface like a beach ball and that wasn't working out. Now, I'm on the mend and I'm ready to tell the world all about all of my feelings again.