A lot to update

I am sitting at the office today, and my head is pounding. The last thing I want to be, at this moment, is awake. However, I can't change that. I have had a lot going on in my life recently, and while that should never be used as an excuse to ignore my blog, I have found that it has been too difficult to take the time to write. I have had the time, but for those of you who don't know me, I have to be "in the mood" to do anything. Writing is something I love, but I have to be in the right emotional state to be able to write. This is most true when it comes to my blog.

I have been adapting since the first time I wrote a blog. Initially, I didn't want to share too much. I wanted to let people know the basics of what was going on in my life, without putting too much personal information in it. The personal information takes more from me emotionally. As the years have gone on I have started to put more of my heart into my blog. I want to share parts of myself, at a very personal level, because of the special person that I hope reads this blog. Almost every time I blog, I mention that I am going to try to be better at writing only to find months pass before I sit down and write again. There is so much I want to share, and pictures that I want to post, that I hope I am able to actually spend more time over the next couple of months talking about my life.

A big hoarder of my time is work. The sad thing is that I feel like a lot of my time when I am at the office is wasted. There are many days where I don't know what I have done all day, but I know that I have been busy all day. I have started to get a little bored with my job, mostly because there are large sections of time where I am performing repetitive tasks, such as reading documents that are nearly identical. I really like the company that I work for, so I'm not ready to leave, but I am getting tired of doing the exact same thing month after month.

I believe that I mentioned that our parent company is selling the entire healthcare business, of which I work. We still don't know anything new and the deal was initially planned to be closed by the end of this year. It doesn't look like that is going to happen.

Another big time taker is school. I think that I mentioned previously that I passed my Comps this past summer and started on my dissertation. I am in the process of writing my Proposal and hope to have it read to defend by February. I am at 73 pages write now and think there is about 5 to 10 more pages of information that I need to add in. I am just having to solidify my data source, which has been a little more work than one might think. The dissertation process has several steps that have to be taken in order, and I am happy to say that I am still on track to finish next summer and hope to have all of my signatures in place to graduate in December 2012. I don't know what I will do once I finish and won't have any other school. I have already ruled out Law School, so I think I will finally be done.

Nathan has started to understand the different levels of school, how each progresses and what each means. We were talking last week about it, and I think it was good for him to know that I was still in school. It gave him an example to strive for. Ultimately, I don't expect him to get a doctorate just because I am. I just want him to do his best.

My last blog I mentioned that Sharon and I decided to leave the small congregation that I had preached at for the past year and couple of months. It was a difficult decision, but one we felt we had to make. After visiting around a couple of places, we placed our membership with a larger congregation in Nashville. It happens to be where Sharon grew up, but it provided the best opportunities for service, and our kids really love the classes and the people there. I mentioned that it was a larger congregation, the average attendance on Sunday morning is between 475 and 515. It has been a big adjustment for Reagan who has only known congregations of less than 80. Nathan was born while we attended a congregation of 225, so it wasn't as much of an adjustment. He has really loved getting to know the boys in his classes.

This is going to be a long blog, but I want to give updates on things going on with my family. I know that much of the focus of this blog historically has been me, but I want to spend more time sharing my family.

My wife Sharon was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes last month. Of all of the adjustments we have made in our lives the past few months, this has been the biggest. It required a complete change in our diet, which is still proving difficult now. Sharon and I have both lost weight because of the diet change, but we still have work to do. Sharon's blood sugar has come down, but she still has work to do so that she can stop taking the medicine.

On top of the diabetes, she has had high blood pressure. The doctor thinks that when her blood sugar is brought under better control, the blood pressure will come down. I hope so. I hate seeing her have to take four different medicines a day.

Our daughter Reagan has had an equally tough past couple of months. She is three, so any time she is sick it is hard. In November she was diagnosed with Impetigo, which is treated with antibiotics, but is very itchy. It took several days for that to start to go away and provide her with any relief. As the Impetigo was going away, we noticed that one of the spots on her bottom didn't look like it was fading. One Sunday morning when she got out of the bath, Sharon noticed that the spot had gotten bigger and was very red. Reagan told us it didn't hurt, but when Nathan asked her to play something with him, she said "I can't, my bottom hurts." So, that prompted a call to the doctor's office. Half way through the Sunday morning worship service, the doctor's office called back and told us to take her to the ER immediately because it sounded like a Staph infection. Nathan chose to stay with Sharon's parents so he could go to class.

At the ER, it was confirmed that she had a Staph infection, which is pretty scary. We have a friend who had MRSA, and lost a big chunk of his leg to the infection. The doctor in the ER, said it was too early to try to drain the infection and test it, so they gave us an antibiotic and told us to see Reagan's pediatrician in a couple of days. When we called the pediatrician's office they scheduled an appointment for Wednesday, to give the antibiotics some time to work. Well, they weren't working. Reagan spend two and a half days unable to sit down comfortably and the infection just continued to get worse, although at a slower pace than pre-ER visit.

Reagan's visit to the pediatrician was one that a parent never wants to experience. The doctor had to open the site and squeeze out as much of the infection as possible and take samples for testing. Despite the attempts to numb the site, Reagan appeared to feel everything that was being done and screamed the entire time. It was truly heartbreaking, but at the same time necessary. The results from the lab indicated that it was not MRSA, but it was a strain of Staph that was resistant to the antibiotic the ER doctor had prescribed. I am happy to say she has recovered now and is back to her old self.

Those instances alone would be enough for any family, but it just wasn't enough for ours. Our son Nathan turned six this month. His birthday party was on last Saturday, the 10th. Nathan is kind of shy, but when he is around his friends, the shy part of Nathan tends to disappear. On Saturday, Nathan was a little different than he normally would have been, but it was hard to point out any one thing that would tell us if he was feeling bad. Sunday morning during Bible class, his teacher said he sat there with his head on the table, which is not like him at all. We wrote both of these off to him being tired from the long weekend, since he wasn't running a fever, coughing or showing any other signs of being sick.

Monday morning, Nathan didn't want to get up for school. This is completely out of character for Nathan, because he would rather be at school than anywhere else most days. When he was getting up, he kept saying that his feet and legs hurt, but nothing looked different with them, so we again decided he was just tired. After he got good and awake, he was back to his normal self and ready for school. In our eyes, Sharon and I had correctly diagnosed him as being tired and having a case of the Mondays (this reference for me comes from the movie Office Space).

When Sharon picked Nathan up from school Monday afternoon, she noticed he was moving much slower than normal and that he wasn't putting much weight on his left leg. When he got in the car he told her that his left foot and leg hurt. When she got home and took of his shoe, his foot was swollen. By swollen, it was twice the normal size. It was bad. A call to the doctor's office meant an appointment on Tuesday morning for possible x-rays. You might ask why he wasn't sent to the ER, and it was because he hadn't fallen or suffered other trama to his foot or leg, so the doctor felt that it could just be a bad sprain. By the time I got home from work, he could not straighten his leg out completely without hurting, and it still hurt for him to walk.

Tuesday morning when Sharon woke Nathan for his doctor's appointment, he had spots that looked like bug bites all over his legs and bottom. On the positive side, the swelling in his foot had gone down a lot, and he could walk with little pain. At the doctor's office, we saw a parade of people come into his exam room. First was a nurse, who looked puzzled by the spots. Then a student Physician's Assistant, than the full time Physician's Assistant, and finally our least favorite doctor out of the office. They were all talking to each other, almost as if we weren't there, planning what tests to run and what the possible diagnosis could be. After everyone else had left the room, the doctor turned to Sharon and I and said, "We are going to be running several tests. We want to try to rule some things out. In some cases, Leukemia presents this way." At those words, both of our hearts sank. The doctor had just told us that there was a possibility that our son had cancer. This had never even been a thought in our minds before that time. That was a sentence we never expected to hear. Other things thrown around that they were testing for were meningitis, several other serious conditions I had never heard of and the best option of all, Henoch-Schonlein Purpura (HSP). After listing all of the things this could be, again cancer was the first thing he said it could be, he said that in most cases it was the last thing, HSP. There were too many things that were unknown at the time to determine for sure what it was. They drew two vials of blood, took a urine sample and scheduled us to come back on Wednesday for the results of the lab work.

The car ride from the doctor's office was very difficult. Two young children were in the back seat who didn't understand any of the conditions the doctor said it could be. My wife was stuck on the fear that it could be Leukemia and while I tried to present the aura of strength and reassurance, in the back of my mind I wanted to break down and cry.

Tuesday afternoon, we went over to Sharon's parents house to go to dinner with them. Sharon's sister had a baby earlier in the day and Sharon and the kids were going to the hospital to see the new baby. This was going to help take Sharon's mind off Nathan if even for a short time. Sharon wanted to show her mother the spots on Nathan's leg and the swelling in his foot. When she pulled up his pant legs, a knot the size of a golf ball had formed on the front of his leg. At that moment, Sharon lost it. She called the doctor on call and was told he would call back. It was over an hour later when the doctor called back and said this was actually a good thing. This knot on his leg ruled out many of the possibles, including Leukemia. He said he was sure it was HSP and warned us that Nathan's legs would see other places of swelling and bruising over night.

At 8:00 Tuesday night, Sharon called me from the hospital where they had gone to see her sister and the new baby. Nathan's knee had swollen up and he could not walk at all. It had gotten worse in a matter of hours and all we could do is give him something to try to ease the pain.

Wednesday morning, Nathan's pediatrician confirmed the diagnosis of HSP and proceeded to assure us that Nathan would be fine and make a full recovery. There is no treatment, it just has to pass on its own, but we could give him Tylenol for the pain. Nathan nearly started crying because he was told he would have to miss the rest of this week of school. He missed four days this week and has been very saddened by it. I am happy to say that Nathan is on a course of recovery with very little pain, and the spots and bruising are going away. He has another doctor's appointment today, but we don't expect anything but good news about his recovery.

On November 12, Nathan's peewee football team, which I was one of the coaches, won the championship. We were on the top of the world that day. Who could have guess that in four short weeks, we could go through all of the medical conditions mentioned above. I would never have guessed that less than four weeks after seeing my son run off the field as time expired in the championship game, I would see my son lying in pain, unable to walk.

The world is starting to right itself again. I just hope that the next time I add to this blog, I don't have a lot to update.

Time to Change

I have mentioned several times that I have been preaching for a small church for a little over a year. After a lot of deep thought and prayer, my wife and I decided that it was time for us to leave this little congregation. So, at the end of September, I will be ending my part time job as pulpit minister of Mission church of Christ.

This was a very difficult decision for me. We love the people in the congregation and I really love preaching, but we felt a void in our spiritual lives. We did not have any families our age to get involved with as it is an older congregation. Our daughter was either in a class by herself or was put into a class with 5 and 6 year olds. Since she just turned 3, it has been difficult for her to get anything from the class.

Additionally, I have felt a little ineffective over the past 8 months. When we came to the congregation the attendance averaged 45 - 50. Within a couple of months, we had grown to an average attendance of 65-70. I was excited as it seemed we as a church were on a good growth path. For the past 6 - 8 months, our numbers have decreased to the point that we have been averaging 35-40. We have lost a couple of members to death, some have moved out of the area, and others have had changes in their work schedules, but we should be averaging at least 55 - 60. We have had several visitors over the past few months who were looking for a place to worship (including young families), but after one service they never come back. I believe that is related to the issues with the age of the congregation mentioned above.

I am not stepping out of service to our Lord, though. We plan to begin visiting a congregation averaging approximately 450 - 500, that has a good mix of age and has plenty of kids the age of ours. I have also applied for a part time youth minister's position, and pray that I will get that. Where ever we end up, we will be active. We have that void mentioned above that has to be filled.

Our hearts are saddened at the thought of leaving a small family, but we are hopeful that we can plant roots and spend a long time showing our children the value of being involved and active in the Lord's church. It was a difficult decision, but it was time to change.

I finally have time to breath...

The last two months have been an extremely busy time for me. I have promised to blog more and keep you updated on the things going on in my life, and I really do intend to, but things keep popping up. Let me try to get you all caught up and then this week I want to go back and spend some additional time talking about some of the things from the past six months and apply pictures to them. That is going to be something new, since I haven't put pictures in my blog before.

Let me start with a topic that I have talked a lot about: school. In May I wrote my comprehensive exam. It consisted of three questions and the instructions said to be concise while answering all of the questions completely. My goal was to write 4-5 pages for each question and leave it at that. The first two questions I thought went very well. I was pleased with the result and felt that they would pass the grading without question. The third question was not so good. Despite my best effort at research, I could not find the theories I was being asked to present and discuss. I instead found methods and try to write them to where it sounded like I was talking about theories. I know, that isn't how to write a sound academic paper. I then waited three weeks for the results of the grading. I knew that there were a couple of grades I could receive. 1) Pass all Questions 2) Fail all Questions 3) Pass some Questions, Fail some Questions with a rewrite of the failed questions 4) Rewrite all questions. I was hoping for a grade of Pass on all questions, but expected to pass the first two questions and be asked to rewrite the third question. To my complete shock and dismay, I was asked to rewrite all three of the questions. Fortunately, I was able to use what I had previously written if I wanted to and I was given a list of issues that the two reviewers had from reading my exam. I then took two days to touch up the first two questions with what I considered to be very cosmetic corrections, and then spent the rest of the two weeks I had doing additional research and making considerable changes to the third question. When I completed the rewrite, I had added eleven pages to my exam from the first version. I was very pleased with myself. I found out a week later that I had passed the rewrite and am now working on my dissertation.

That brings me to a frustrating area that I am working through right now. I have never written a dissertation before. I have a dissertation chair that is supposed to guide me through the process. My luck is that my dissertation chair has never worked with a student on their dissertation. So, she has no idea what she is supposed to be doing to help me. I am so frustrated!!! I have gotten no guidance and am trying to keep moving through the process. I know that I only have a couple of weeks in the current "class" to reach a key milestone of completing my prospectus and forming my dissertation committee, but I don't know exactly how to do everything in the prospectus. I may have to seek out additional help, because I have to get this done.

I mentioned in my last blog that I was getting a pool. The pool has been successfully installed and I have enjoyed it on five occasions over the last month (I told you I have been busy). We officially opened our pool with a 4th of July cookout with my wife's family. It was fun, but a lot of work. I still have a lot of work to do getting my yard back level again. To get the pool level, they had to dig down 19 inches on half of my yard. Needless to say, I have a lot of dirt to move when I have the time.

After having the pool in, we had to have a deck built. I built it myself with the help of my wife's husband. We spent one Saturday working and got most of it finished. I have one section that is not finished as it is going to be done a little differently. For most of the deck I used a composite material to keep from having splinters and warping, so we will see how that works out over time. We have been happy with it the past week and a half. I have to correct that on Saturday we didn't have everything done. We have the one section that is still not finished, but this week I did the banisters and added some additional supports that were not initially expected because I have never used the composite material before. I am hoping to finish up the rest of everything Saturday evening, if I have the time.

Last week my little girl turned 3. It is so hard to believe that she is getting so big. I am going to have to add pictures. We had a pool party for her birthday on Saturday, which is why the deck had to be done when it did. Everyone had a blast.

I have been working a lot lately. We have had several people taking their summer vacations, and that means that I get to pick up a lot of their work. 50 - 60 hour weeks have been very common, but it seems that I can breath a little now.

I am still preaching at the little congregation we attend. I don't know how much longer I am going to do it, because I think we are almost ready to look for a new church home. There is a lot of drama with some of the families that only seems to be getting worse, and people try to drag us into the middle of it. It is not an environment I want to be in, let alone have my kids in. If things don't get better soon, we will have to really consider leaving. I was asked by the elders to teach the high school class on Sunday mornings as well. Now I teach that class on both Sunday and Wednesday. It is starting to wear on my a little because we only have been having two people come to class for various reasons. Normally, the class would not be exhausting because of that, but both of the people that have been in class have mental disabilities and don't have the ability to really participate. I feel like I am lecturing for thirty minutes to people who don't understand and at times aren't even listening. That is emotionally draining. To build on that, my daughter doesn't like class most of the time, because she is either in the baby class where the teach doesn't do anything but sing songs, or in the kindergarten class where it is a little above where she is at. It is tough with her being the only child her age in the congregation. The final issue that I am personally having with the congregation is that there are not any other people the age of me or my wife. The closest people are a single college age kid who is 19/20 and a couple that is in their late 40's. I feel like I really need some people close to my age range to associate with.

The last thing that I am going to touch on today, and again I am going to say now that I need to get pictures uploaded, is a new endeavour that I have taken on. That is coaching Pee Wee football. My five year old son decided this summer that he wanted to play football. We found a team for him to play on and signed him up. During the first practice, they asked for some help coaching, so I volunteered, applied, went through the interview, took the online coaching class that is required for certification, and paid the fee to be a volunteer coach. It has been an extremely rewarding two weeks so far. Being able to see the growth of these 5 and 6 year old boys learning something that they have never done before has been amazing. To see the drive and desire in their eyes and to help them through the times they wanted to quit and when the helmets were "hurting" their heads has already made it worth the money. (They just had to get used to the helmets.) It is frustrating at times to know they aren't working their hardest, especially when it is my son who isn't running his hardest, but they will learn and get better. They have come so far. I am really glad that I offered my time, even when I had so little to offer.

I will right more this week, even as the work is piling up again. I just got an e-mail asking me to help do some things I normally wouldn't work on. At least, for now, I finally have time to breath...

It has been too long...

Well, here I am a long time since my last blog. So much has gone on that I probably won't cover it all. I am just proud of myself for actually sitting down and blogging today. I have gotten really bad about this whole blog thing, but I really think I am going to block some time on my calendar atleast once a week to blog. We will see how that goes.

Since I last blogged a lot has happened. I have found out that a lot of people around us are now expecting babies within the next year. And I do mean a lot. I can think of 5 that I know and if I waited five seconds to think, I might come up with a couple more. I am not going to say who they are, because I think that is their business not mine. I am excited about all of them though!!! :)

I completed all of my coursework for school and took my comprehensive exam. It was horrible, although I am still holding out hope for a "Pass". I definitely do not want a "Fail" and I really don't want a "Rewrite". It was bad enough writing it the first time. I guess if it came down to a rewrite or fail, I would rather rewrite it, but I am hoping for the pass. I still have another week or two before I find out how I did, and it is killing me. I don't like waiting to find out how I did on stuff. I always want to know now!!! I will let everyone know when I find out.

We decided that we were going to get a pool this summer, so assuming I get all of the permits, sand, HOA approvals, and all of the other 10 million things done it will be up in two weeks. I am already almost ready to not get the pool, but I really want it, so we will have one.

Work is pretty busy, and it is calling me away for now. I will try to catch up some more soon, It has been too long...

Frustrated

For lack of a better word, I am going to call myself frustrated.

I am frustrated over the fact that I submitted an 18 page paper for class a week and a half back and have not received feedback from it, with another 15-20 page paper due in four days.

I am frustrated because we are supposed to get snow, and although we were promised snow by 11:00 AM, it is now 3:20 and we still have not had a single flake fall. To add insult to injury, I get to see pictures of a 100 year record for snow get broken in the part of Oklahoma I grew up in.

To top it off, I have people who complain about having to do their jobs.

Finally, I have not blogged much this year because I have been so busy.

Add all of that up and I am Frustrated!!!!