Oh Boy! What A Day.

 I am thankful that I get to hang out everyday with these three good looking little people...

 And spend time exploring beautiful places... 

Thanks goodness for these kids and the peaceful Boise River we played in yesterday, otherwise the day would have been really overwhelming and unbearable.

Yesterday we confirmed through a second opinion that Carly is indeed allergic to Wheat, Dairy, Eggs, and Bananas.  Now would be an appropriate time to say "oh man!"  or let out a big "sigh".  Our family has undergone phases where we have eliminated wheat or dairy but mostly for me.  One would be doable.  And even both are doable.  It is the no eggs that is killing me.

Poor Carly cried for about an hour this morning grieving the loss of Gold Fish Crackers and Pirate Booty.  She finally settled on oatmeal for breakfast when all she really wanted were eggs or pancakes.  It is hard to eliminate something as an adult but at least you understand.  This process is no fun with a kid.

This elimination diet is a six month process while we go through a process called NAET with a naturopathic doctor.  It eliminates the allergy by slowly building up your immunity to the allergy.  We still have tons of research to do before we completely understand it but you can check out the website if you are interested.  www.naet.com

So here is the deal.  I am grateful that we have amazing doctors in the natural medicine world who provide alternatives to drug happy western medicine.  Especially for my 5 year old who was originally told to go on a prescription allergy medicine for the rest of her life.  Please!  And I am grateful that we have been on the road to natural living for a long time so that this news wasn't hopeless and we knew where to turn.  I am thankful that Carly in the last week has taken a big interest in eating healthy and making her own green smoothies.  But.....

Come on already! 

Carly has already had oral surgery, eye surgery, contacts, glasses, bifocals, eye patching and now the allergies.  Urg!  I love my little lady and her problems are not burdens, she is a blessing and as a family we can work through these issues.  But....

This is a lot of hard work!

It is exhausting.  We now have therapy one day a week with Connor (that post will come) and all the homework that is with that plus home school.  We have completely changed the way we are disciplining the kids (per the therapist).  We have eye appointments, dentist appointments, allergy appointments and so on.  And having to find all new doctors for all of these since we just moved here.  But....

This is a big reason why we moved here.  

To have the time to completely focus on our family and our kids.  To not be distracted by expectations and busyness.  To not feel overwhelmed but feel like together as a family we can deal with this and do it well.  That is the hope anyway.  And I must say the six weeks we have been here, all by our lonesome, with only each other and the occasional visitor, we are very happy with our crazy decision to pack up and leave everything comfortable.

Deep breath and one step at a time.

And maybe a bowl of popcorn and old episodes of That 70's Show.  ; )

Here comes the sun...

I was reflecting the other day on all of the moves we have made as the Pierce family.  Besides moving to CA from ID for college, the rest of our moves have been very quick and crazy.  I really mean quick and crazy. 

Redding, CA - Seattle, WA:  Within a three day period and in this order, TJ quit his youth pastor position, we had an offer on our house, and a friend offered his condo in Seattle for us to live in while we regrouped and found a new career.  Within weeks we were driving a u haul to Seattle and moving our family of four into a 1000 sq ft condo that we had NEVER seen before or ever been to the area before.  It was nuts.

Seattle, WA - Coeur d'Alene, ID:  nine months later we went to CDA for vacation for 4th of July.  TJ brought his suit and hit the pavement to just see if by chance he could get a job and we could be closer to family (third baby was on the way) and live in a place more affordable.  He landed an amazing job, flew back to Seattle and quit his other job, we finished out our vacation and then drove home and packed up our Condo.  It was really strange to go on vacation and not ever come back.

Coeur d'Alene, ID - Boise, ID -  again about a three week process of getting an offer from TJ's company to move, thinking about it, having everything fall into place, and then once again loading up our now family of five and moving to a place we knew nothing about and into a house we had only seen for 20 minutes.

Ok, so there is the run down.  One thing that I am really proud of, and not in a prideful way, about TJ and I is that we don't settle for something if we have the power and God's allows us to change it.  Most of our moves have been because of dissatisfaction and wanting something better for our family.  And we feel like God each time had stirred our hearts in that way, to want something better.  Our move to Boise was no exception.

I said in a previous post that I would explain why we moved here.  As I have been thinking about it, the answers are so many.  And a lot of them are very personal and have taken some time for us to process.  That last sentence sounds juicier than it is, trust me.  : )

Because I already feel like I have been typing a lot I will start with a short and rather lame reason why we moved here.

MORE SUNSHINE

Some of you reading this may think that is silly.  It's not!  Those of you who have only visited Coeur d'Alene in the summer think we are crazy for moving away from that beautiful place to the dessert.  But Coeur d'Alene is a hard place to live the rest of the year, for us anyway.  The days are short, dark, FREEZING, and snow from November to April.  I am a sun person.  Always have been ever since I can remember.  I love to swim and lay out.  A lot.  Summer is my favorite season.  TJ likes the sun too, he does however find contentment easier than I do so he can tolerate the weather.  But as I said above one of the things I appreciate about us is that we don't settle or tolerate if we have the power to change it.

We are still in the 80's low 90's here in Boise and it is LOVELY.  We love it and are soaking in the sun everyday.  The kids come inside every night from a full day of playing outside covered in sweat and dirt.

And my heart is happy.

READ this book!

I picked up a book to read from the library a few weeks ago, something that is new for me.  I like to buy books and have them for my own library.  The same library that has been in about ten book boxes for years because we have not had a place to store them since we moved from CA.  But I thought I would give the "borrow" concept a go.  Here is the book:

First, I am not nor have I really ever been a huge Steven Curtis Chapman fan.  I know his music but I don't think I have ever owned one of his albums.  But the Chapman family caught my attention when one of their daughters was ran over and killed in their driveway by their older son on Connor's 5th birthday, May 21 2008.  I remember seeing them on Good Morning America and then digging into the story on the internet, but that was about it.  A friend read this book and shouted from the rooftops how good it was.  She is like me, so I assumed I should read it too.

The reason I read this book is because I was (and still am) reading three other books.  A parenting book, a spiritual book, and a health book.  Let's just say I needed something enjoyable and quick to read so I could feel like I actually finished something.

This book is so honest, which I am a BIG fan of.  Mary Beth shares her life and her struggle with choosing to see God in the midst of really hard and sad times.  I saw myself on so many of the pages.  I laughed so hard that I cried.  I was heartbroken with her pain that it was almost too hard to read because as a mother, I could feel the heartache.  Her faith and authenticity was inspiring.

When I turned this book back into the library, I gave it a hug.  No really.  I felt like I had to say goodbye to something that I had just gone on a life changing journey with.  Something that spoke so loud into my life, something that was full of such goodness.

I went home and ordered it on Amazon.  My library needs it.  : )

Read this book!!!

And now to add to my music library, my very first Steven Curtis Chapman album.  The songs that came out of their sorrow, grief, and HOPE. 

New Beginnings, Old Blog

Well here it is.  The day I make my blog public.  Hear the party horns?  Yea, me 

either.  There are only a few past posts so if you are completely bored you are 

welcome to read them.  However, last year's attempt at blogging was really only 

for me to have a space to get some thoughts and feelings out.  So if you do read them, read them in order from the beginning.  Warning: they are very honest.  But that is what you get with me.  I debated deleting them and starting over but they are a part of my story so it seemed silly.

It has been a little over a year since I jotted down my first thoughts.  I was getting ready to start our first "official" year of home school.  A lot of things are still the same as they were a year ago and a lot has changed.  The biggest change is that we have moved!  We packed up our house, said good bye to our porch swing, our amazing neighborhood, friends, and family, all things familiar and drove 8 hours south and put our stake in the ground in a very unfamiliar place.  We waved hello to more sunshine, hotter weather, new big house, new neighbors, new job, and new beginnings.

Goodbye Coeur'dAlene...

Hello Meridian (right outside Boise)...

I will share more about Pierce Family Life soon and all that has been going on. And I will work on making this page more attractive.  HA.  Until then, here is to New Beginnings and an Old Blog!

Discouraged

Three days after my last post, once my husband got home from his business trip, I hit bottom and had me a good old fashion emotional breakdown. It was ugly but got the attention of my husband and lead to good things. We decided that I needed to go off all my medications (an antidepressant and metformin for my insulin resistance), renew our gym membership and get back to working out, replace my medication with supplements, herbs and good nutrition, and ask for more help. God provided the membership by someone out of the blue offering to pay our membership for a year and a couple in our church who work in the supplement section of our local health food store have helped me get on my supplements.

As the new years starts I knew one goal for our family was going to be to eliminate all dairy from our diet. I have been reading articles that dairy is linked to bed wetting (one of our kids can't stop wetting the bed despite trying many things) and also acne and rashes which are two things that I can't seem to get rid of. So we have started that adventure. Part of our home school curriculum for this month is cooking and learning about good food and nutrition. I am really excited about teaching the kids these concepts. Being back at the gym has been good but also hard trying to find time to add it in to the daily schedule and still get school done but overall has been a huge blessing. Things seemed to be going well and headed in a positive direction. Then...

I stepped on the scaled yesterday morning to discover that I have gained 15 pounds over the last six months! I knew I had gained weight because hardly any of my clothes fit anymore. I instantly became depressed and defeated and down right mad. This came after the night before reflecting over the past year and all that I had accomplished. I was reflecting on how proud I am of myself for stepping up to the challenge and home schooling my kids. It is something that I never wanted to do let alone thought I could do and it has turned into a really great thing for our family. And I am really proud of that. But once I saw the 15 pounds, none of that mattered.

My journey towards health and weight has been a seven year process. It all started after I had our first child. It has been hard. The hardest and most trying thing I have ever gone through. After trying everything, and I mean everything, I decided a few years ago to focus more on my heart because like the bible says I do believe the heart is the well spring of life (Proverbs 4:23) and everything comes from the heart. So I spent my time, money and energy letting God transform my heart in hopes that good health would follow. He did amazing things and for the first time in my life I feel like I really experienced the power of God's healing. But only in my heart. But for a time being that was ok with me. And enough. Then my health started to go down hill again so I had people pray for healing and I myself began to claim the power of Christ in ways I had never done before and ask him to heal me. Then as I stood on the scale looking at the 15 pound weight gain with acne all over my face, a huge rash on my neck, and 2 months late on my period, I gave up. And felt defeated. Hopeless.

Feeling like I have put my hope in man and been let down, put my hope in myself and been let down, and put my hope in God and dare I say it, feel let down. I know God. I know who he says he is. I know what he can do, I've seen it. I know that he is my hope. My healer. My answer. Then why do I feel like I have no hope when I know the One who IS hope? These feelings caught me off guard and leave me in a place of not knowing what to do with these feelings.

Last night at church the word that God gave our pastor (who happens to be a very close friend) to share is that God is for you. God is FOR me! Despite all that is going on in your life and all that you feel, God is for you. And I believe it because that is what God says in his word (Romans 8:31) but right now I feel like God is not for me, helping me, healing me. The fact that I have 15 more pounds to lose after all I have been though seems like a slap in the face. Things are going in the wrong direction and I am lost. I have tried it all.

Giving up is not something that I usually do however. So with the help of my amazing husband, who is the only one who really knows me (my friends still seem distant and of little use. But whatever, I am not even dwelling on that), we have come up with a plan and are moving forward in faith asking that God will this time honor our cries and help me lose weight and heal my body and my heart.

Please, God, you are the only hope I have. Even though it is often a lonely process, I still chose to believe.

Frustrated.

There is a quote currently written on the chalk board in my kitchen which says, "Beware of what you dwell on for that you shall surely become." Ralph Waldo Emerson. Seems like ever since I put it up there I have been struggling with self pity. Darn quote!

TJ is out of town for work. But I say it is more fun than work. He gets to stay in a hotel by himself for four nights, surf for three days, eat out every night, catch up with friends and family and on and on. Sure he has to work somewhere in there but it's a pretty good gig. I am home in a trashed house with laundry coming out my ears and the pile is only getting bigger because the dryer is in need of fixing, of which my dad and I finally fixed tonight, home schooling kids all day, trying to keep up on house work, grocery shopping, preparing all meals by myself, and doing bedtime by myself. Basically I wake with my kids and go to sleep with my kids. There is never a break. And it is just depressing.

Here is the other thing, I have watched kids for three different friends this week. None of which have asked if they can help me out in return this week nor have they checked in on me to see if I needed anything. These are the same friends who when their husbands are gone, I take their kids, bring them dinner, make sure they are ok. I understand that not everyone is thoughtful and has a knack for details and encouragement but really? I don't understand how a person could have so many friends and feel so alone.

A friend asked me how home school was going the other day (finally!) and as soon as I started answering she tuned me out. This came after I sat and listened to her go on and on about her current problems. Oh! It is so frustrating.

Then things cross my mind like, "am I really not as good of a friend as I think I am?", "have I done something to offend them?", "am I just being a baby and making a big deal out of nothing?", "am I expecting too much?". All of which I don't think are true and I think are just lies I tell myself to make me feel bad instead of dealing with the situation.

So back to the quote, I am trying really hard to stay focused on the good things and not let the disappointing things make me bitter. And trying to realize that I am never alone as long as I call on God who has really given me wonderful kids and an amazing husband who make all in this life more bearable.

And did I mention I just started the book, Calm My Anxious Heart: A Woman's Guide To Finding Contentment. HA.

Balance

I am entering my second week of home school. It has been interesting and surprisingly a lot more amazing than I would have expected. Most days have been a struggle to convince Connor to do school but what we are learning and doing is really neat. Waking up when we want, going where we want, moving at a pace that fits the day, etc. We still don't have a routine and I know I need to up the work expectations but for right now the experience is a pleasant surprise.

What I am noticing is that if my friends are not home schooling, which none that live near me are, then they are not really interested in how it is going for me. I think I called, texted, or emailed most of my friends to see how their little ones first day of school was but no on really checked on me to see how home school was going. They would ask but then move on, no one really wants to "hear" about it. I find myself again in a place of fighting loneliness and looking around for new relationships despite that I am constantly around "friends".

Another strange place I find myself is that when I decided to homeschool I felt like I was making a new commitment to my children. A commitment to be around them all the time, to put what they needed before what I wanted to do. What I have found is that most of the other moms around me are where I was before which was a place where you were glad to have your kids in school, anxious to check them into childcare at the gym to have some time with out the kids, and always trying to find someone to watch them so you could go run errands or do some of the things you want to do. I am now in a place where my kids are with me all the time and I have accepted that so I am not trying to get rid of them but rather living life with them. This has lead to two things. One, I am watching a lot of my friends kids since I am home. Which is fun and annoying all at the same time. But the favor is hardly returned. I have three kids for them to watch and they want to enjoy their alone time. Frustrating. And two, it is really hard to hear people complain about having to drag one kid to the store. Please, I have to take three everywhere I go. I can't even go to my class at the gym by myself anymore because Connor is too old for the child care so he sits in my class with me. If I want to try on clothes in a store I drag all three kids in the dressing room with me, we all shop for groceries, all go to the chiropractor and most other appointments. I have learned to deal with it and try to make the best of it but it is really annoying when no one offers to help and then calls me to watch their one kid because they want to go run errands. Where is the sense of helping to be kind or thoughtful or just to be a blessing to someone else? Again back to the evaluation of are my relationships life giving or life sucking. Hard to balance trying to be a blessing to others and saying no to people who never help in return.