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. 😊