Catching You Up On Our Life

It has been a little while since I have written. It has been pretty busy around here. I wanted to get everyone caught up....

The No Gossip Challenge

Failed. Miserably.  My goal for last week was to not talk about anyone else - unless it was praise - period. It was also to stay away from those gossip traps called people.com and usmagazine.com which are my go-to's when I just want to tune out  my life for a moment or two (or twenty or thirty). I didn't realize just how much I talk about other people until I was paying attention to it. I don't really think that I was malicious at all (unless you count that F%^#ing bad driver that really made me mad - just kidding/well, not really), but I do talk about a lot of people a lot of the time. There is a lot going on with family members outside those that live within the walls of my own home and so I was on the phone a lot last week just checking to see how this person was or that person was. My family is full of opinionated people (me included) so we all had to voice our opinions over what was going on and then sometimes we even had to voice our opinions on other member's opinions. This is mainly where I got into trouble. Then, when I knew my gossiping challenge went down the toilet I was on my gossip websites like a fly on....well, you know what. I guess I have a lot to work on when it comes to the things that come out of my mouth. Since tomorrow is April 1 I am going to pick myself back up and attempt to try my personal no gossip challenge again.

Andy

Andy's soccer coach approached me yesterday after his practice and told me that he needs to be on a more competitive team. She told me that he is too good of a player to play in the league that he is currently in. She said that she considers herself a good coach, but that Andy needed someone even better to really guide him and teach him. She knows of a coach (one that will just be moving his son up to Andy's age bracket) that she wants Andy to play for. I was thrilled for Andy because he really does need a bigger challenge. He really improved a lot under his last two coaches and I wanted to see him have the success that Josh has found here in New Mexico. I was so disappointed in how hard it was for me to find some place competitive for Andy. Everything happens for a reason, I know, and I am so happy that Andy will most likely be joining a Rio Rapids team.

Josh

For those of you who do not already know, Josh fell off of our brick retaining wall two Sundays ago trying to retrieve a basketball from the neighbors yard and injured his right knew pretty good. He is currently in a knee brace and on crutches and will most likely remain in that state for the next 4-6 weeks (at least!). I was not happy with the first doctor that we saw and was given a recommendation for an Orthopedic doctor with a degree in Sports Medicine. This doctor happens to have been a doctor for the U.S. National Men's Soccer Team, so I knew that Josh would be in good hands. We are going tomorrow to have an MRI. There are no broken bones. But Josh either damaged a growth plate (which would require him to be fitted in a cast for a while), tore his meniscus (which would most likely need surgery to repair and would require many months of physical therapy and no soccer for 3-6+ months), or (and we are hoping that this is the case) he just overextended and bruised a ligament in his kneee and which will require 4-6 weeks of rest and recovery. He knee is still swollen as their is fluid in it. Josh is miserable because he cannot play soccer. To make matters worse we are not sure when he will be able to play. I am devastated for him as we are such a soccer family and I know how much he lives for soccer.

Sarah

Sarah is doing well. We opened the pool this past weekend which she was happy about. She is doing great in gymnastics and I am proud to see how much she can do despite her blindness.  Her only issue is that she is missing her friends Leah and Joselynn a lot. She is already planning out how much time she will be allowed to spend with them when we make our summer trip back to Ohio.

Elizabeth

Oh, Elizabeth. What can I even say about her? She is going through a phase (I hope) of throwing massive temper tantrums and of being very defiant. I just read about a book called "The Difficult Child" and I plan on picking up a copy because I am at my whits end with that girl. And she is only 8! I feel like I am failing her as a parent and this bothers me to my core. She needs something from me as a parent that I just cannot see right now and I believe that her tantrums are a way of her telling me that she desperately needs something from me that I am currently not giving her. I tried to take her out and spend some time with her  one on one to see if that would help her behavior. I was thinking that maybe she just needed some time away from the other kids (who can be very brutal with her because they get fed up with her behavior and how much time she requires from Bob and I.) We went to the craft store and picked up a craft and then went out to a bakery and had dinner and worked on our craft together. She appreciated the time, but it didn't improve her behavior in the way that I had hoped it would.  I don't want to fail her and I just know that I am right now.

Visitors

Both my brother and sister-in-law and my mother visited us this month. It was really nice to have those that we love come out and see our new life here in the wild west. I know that it is not easy to get out here and I appreciate those able to make the trip a lot. That being said having visitors is tiring both for us hosts and for those visiting. I feel the same way when we go back to Ohio. Hosting my family is a lot and being away from our home here is a lot. I wish that we weren't so far away from our friends and family back in Ohio because it would make visiting less tiring and seem less like work. I don't know...


Nutrition/ My Diet

I am having Bob print off some of the pages that I found most important from the USDA food guidelines. I thought that the document was going to be full of B.S. because it came from the government. I was surprised by how unbiased it appeared (if you read between the lines). Once I have the copies that I need I will be able to write a post about what I have found out. I haven't forgotten about writing about my findings I just haven't gotten everything together. (Tish - we most likely will not be doing anything gluten free in our house, but I have heard many of my friends go gluten free and swear by it. Never say never for us though.)

I have decided to give Veganism a try again. (Actually, I think the politically correct term now-a-days is "plant based diet".) Here is why:  1. I have a thing for animals that I just cannot ignore. I have been a vegetarian since I was a junior in high school, and (except for 1 time) I haven't had meat since. Cheese and dairy products are what I struggle with. As much as I love cheese I think that the poor dairy cow has it almost worse than all of the other food animals out there. I could go on and on about this topic, but since I know most of you are meat eaters you don't want to read about my vegan rant. So, I will cut that topic short. 2.) I lost 30+ lbs when I was a vegan. I ate better than I ever did and I felt great. I have struggled with my weight since becoming a mom and the problem is not going to go away unless I do something about it. I am just tired of being fat. Just sick and tired of it. I know that I can lose weight and feel better both physically and mentally if I practice veganism again.

Everything Else

I guess that is just about everything.

 I am growing a garden and will be (well, actually Bob will be) building some raised beds this weekend. I started all of my plants from seeds and have grown: peppers, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, green beans, squash, zucchini, pumpkins. and basil. (My carrots did not fare so well.) I am excited to attempt to grow my own bounty here in the desert.

We have some yard work to do. A patio to fix. Weeding to be done. A fence to be painted. Some patio furniture to be purchased. We are finished working on inside stuff until the fall/winter. (For the interior we have a list that keeps on getting longer and longer. Oh, the joys of buying a home from a previous owner that did all of the work himself!)  But for the next few months our focus is going to be on the outside of our home.

Bob is doing well at work. He is putting in a lot of hours and is working harder than I have ever seen him, but he is happy. A happy husband is a happy house. A happy wife is a happy life. Good thing both he and I are pretty happy, huh?

I still cannot believe that I live in New Mexico. I am living an amazing life. I am so proud of Bob and I for taking the chance and the leap of faith that it took to move out here. Life is an adventure and as a dear friend of mine says, "Life is not a practice round." I couldn't agree with him more. I know for certain that life is the way it is meant to be for a reason. Josh asked Bob and I not too long ago what we thought our life would have been like if Sarah had not been diagnosed with NMO. If Sarah had never gotten sick we would be living in Yuma, AZ right now. Bob would have gotten the promotion he took to move to Las Cruces in Yuma a year before we took this one. (In fact he was in the interviewing process and had to stop it because Sarah was diagnosed. And we just recently found out that Bob was the man that the hiring manager was looking to bring aboard.) My boys never would have gotten to play soccer together with their middle school team if that had happened. Andy would have never had a chance to ask his girlfriend to be his special lady. Josh would have had one less year with his best friends. Elizabeth would have never gotten close to Emma. Sarah would have never formed as tight of a bond as she did with Joselynn and her family. I would not have learned to appreciate the life that I lead had I not struggled so desperately with not understanding why we weren't moving ahead in life. Why we had invested in all of the things that we were told would get us somewhere like getting advanced degrees. We are living exactly where we are meant to be living. There is something to be learned here, and when God feels that we have learned what He set out before us it is only then will we move on to the next part of our lives.

That all being said I miss our friends dearly. I think about them a lot and wonder how they are doing. I am excited to see them again this summer. I miss my sister a lot and my nephew and two nieces. That is the hard part about moving. You miss those you love dearly - I don't think that part will get any easier.

 I am happy with our new life here and I am even happier with how settled we are given the fact that we have only been here for 5 months. Life is good in Las Cruces. It really, really is.