Is My Life Tough?

So tomorrow brings about October...cooler weather, pumpkins, and color changes everywhere you turn.  August and September proved "busy as usual" for the King family.  Back to school went great for all 4 kids (and mom too).  As I welcome fall (which happens to be my favorite time of year), I can't help but reflect on all that is "good" in my world.  Logan is loving color guard with the the high school band (not to say that there hasn't been some tear shed over the hard work at times), Dylan has taken up playing the tenor saxophone, Briggs has taken on first grade with gusto as he has decided he wants to be an engineer that "invents stuff", and Lauren continues to make us laugh, smile, and embrace life as she has settled into kindergarten.  The most EXCITING news on the horizon is the fact that we will be welcoming a new niece/nephew in March next year!  My sister Stacey is expecting and everyone in our house is so excited you would think the baby was going to be living here.  For those of you who know about "the flood", things are slowly but surely coming along and it looks like we'll be moved back in by the middle of October.  Nursing school has been a hand in hand experience of challenges and rewards.  As I move through each 5 week rotation, the desire in my heart grows stronger and stronger to help those who are sick and to be a light in their time of darkness.  As I am human, I have to admit that there are times that I am weaker than weak when caring for my patients.  However, in those weak moments is where I seem to find the greatest reward.  I know that it may sound strange to most "normal" people, but I have to say, there is no greater assurance of knowing that I am in God's will than when I find myself caring for a patient who is critically ill and just by caring for them with all of my heart and all that is within me, seeing a smile wash across their face.  Seeing someone who is more than likely facing death find a reason to smile spurs me on to the next patient's room-making sure to enter with the best I have to offer.  Over the past couple of months there have been several times that I wanted to sit down and have a pity party for how "tough" my life is right now with a family, job, nursing school, and a house "under construction".  But I have to stop myself and ask, how could I dare feel sorry for myself?  Both Jeff and I along with our 4 children have our health and we do still have a roof over our heads (albeit under construction).  So, what I end up concluding after one of my attempted pity parties is, I AM BLESSED!  Although I would orchestrate things differently if given the opportunity (regarding stress and scheduling), I would not trade the opportunities that God has set before me for anything.  Admittedly I can't wait to graduate in a year, but in the meantime, it is my daily prayer that I embrace each day for what it has to offer, and give away all that I have to give. 

Home Sweet Home...A Place for Reflecting, Caring, and FLOATING

WOW what a summer that we have had the pleasure to enjoy.  We've just returned from three weeks at Hunting Island (Logan and Dylan were there for a month via grandparents).  Hunting Island is a place where you can truly relax, unwind, and get rejuvenated for what's ahead.  While there we enjoyed spending time with Jeff's parents and sister, our friends the Kirbys, the Stansells, and our many beach friends (the Cobbs, the Kelley's, and all of our Ridgeland friends).  Logan's friend Sara Beth (a.k.a. our 5th child) spent two weeks with us too.  We've been home for a week-working hard trying to get the house put back together again (minus a 3 day weekend trip to Dollywood with the Stansells and 12 kids to celebrate Camryn's (Stansell) 13th birthday.  Whew!  So...fast forward to yesterday, July 31, 2012.  The day started out in the wee hours on a somber note.  Around 1:00 a.m. I received a phone call from my friend Angela (Stansell-notice a theme?), telling me that her husband Brett's dad had just passed away.  The news left me with an instant numb feeling.  Brett's mother just passed away less than 2 months ago and they have held a special place in the hearts of the King family as they have welcomed us with loving arms into their family circle.  I had a hard time trying to sleep for the rest of the night and found myself reflecting in 2 directions as the sun came up.  July 31, 2012 would have been my dad's 60th birthday.  Sadly he passed away almost 4 years ago.  As I went through the morning I thought back on several memories of Daddy-him calling me "Fuzzy", walking me down the aisle on my wedding day, and the look on his face when he held Logan (his 1st grandchild) for the 1st time.  I found my time of reflection short-lived when the phone rang around noon.  It was Logan-she was at color guard camp and had gotten sick.  She was begging me to get there as soon as possible.  So, before heading out I told Lauren to go potty-like any mother of a five-year-old would do before leaving home (trust me-this LITTLE fact becomes huge in the FLOATING part of my day).  Potty she did and I hurried off to get Logan.  I whisked Logan home gave her some medicine and got her into bed.  REWIND...lots to be done so I headed right back out (not feeling great myself-perhaps due to lack of sleep).  I spent some time in the garage sorting through the remaining "pile" from our 3 week sabbatical before running some errands.  FAST FORWARD...it's now around 3:30-4:00 p.m. and I'm finally home for the day.  As I walk through the back foyer I hear a strange sound-water methodically dripping.  I followed the sound and to my surprise, horror, and astonishment-it's coming from the ceiling in the powder room.  Simultaneous to my discovery I hear Lauren from the upstairs yelling, "Mommy der's wats a wader fawing out of the toyet!"  As I arrived on the top step upstairs my horror and disbelief began to set in as I saw water standing a good 1-2 inches in the kid's bathroom-and it had come out into the hall carpet as well.  I yelled for Dylan to bring me towels, blankets, anything he could find that would soak up water.  As I scurried around trying to stop/survey the damage I saw that the toilet handle was stuck in the "flush" position.  Lauren has a history of using LOTS of toilet paper and slowly the pieces start to fall into place...12:00-Lauren pottied (obviously feeling the need for lots of paper)-4:00 water flowing down the toilet-so much so that it's dripping into the powder room. OH NO, that's like 4 hours-how much water could it be?  I ran downstairs (still methodical dripping coming from the powder room) and headed for the basement-surely not?  OH YES-there's water dripping in the basement too.  At that point my mind was racing-where do I start, what do I try to soak up first?  Back on the main floor I found Dylan putting buckets under the steady streams coming from the ceiling.  I decided to work from the top down-racing to get anything absorbent that I could find.  In the midst of it all I called Jeff to let him know what I was in the middle of.  His reply, "come on baby, how much water can come from an overflowed toilet?"  Seriously, did he really just ask me that?  Unfortunately, it took him arriving home about an hour later to "absorb"-hehe-the magnitude of OUR problem.  After doing his walk through survey we concurred that it was a good thing that we were in "good hands".  As it was after hours at this point I shot our insurance agent Michael a facebook message asking what to do.  After typing the message I went back to damage control while Jeff grabbed a quick shower.  In no time at all the kids were yelling that someone was at the door.  WARNING:  Reality begins to set it.  It was Michael-talk about service!  LOL.  He lives about a mile away and decided to come right over as soon as he got my message (I saw about 7 hours later where he had messaged back asking me our house #-he said he just drove around until he saw our cars in the driveway-talk about an insurance agent who knows his clients).  Unfortunately, Micheal didn't stay long-he walked upstairs looked at the kid's bathroom before looking at us and telling us that we had to start the dry out "process".  He called ServPro (in case you're like me and didn't know they existed-this is what they do for a living) and they were set to be here around 9:00 p.m.  Michael left and told us to start there and we would regroup in the morning (a.k.a. in 3-4 hours from now).  3 guys from ServPro showed up and after a walk through with their handy dandy moisture detector delivered "the news".  I knew it wasn't good when the guy started off by saying, "first of all, remember that everything is going to be okay" (why does he feel the need to tell me this?!?!?), there's a lot of water-not only in the 2 bathrooms and basement but it had also seeped through the walls into 2 bedrooms, the kid's den, my office, and the hallway!  He said he didn't want to keep our kids up all night so he would just gets fans and dehumidifiers placed for the night and start "the removal process" in the morning.  He went on to tell us that since the water source was from the "toyet" where Lauren had done her "business" that it would be considered a category 3 "a.k.a. black water"-in other words, everything porous must GO.  Yes, according to Mr. ServPro my life will be officially ripped apart today (well it got a good start last night).  After placing 21 fans and 4 dehumidifiers throughout the house the guys left a little before midnight.  Later today a crew will be back to tear out Sheetrock, carpet, hardwoods, and who knows what else.  So, I did SURVIVE July 31, 2012 but not without it leaving me with memories that I will carry for the rest of my life.  I pray that the days will get easier for the Stansells as they go by, I miss my Daddy terribly but I am thankful for the precious memories I have of him, and I'm sure that one day (perhaps when Lauren is in college) I will find the ability to laugh about her "toyet" story-but not today.  Today I will be taking one breath at a time and looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

It's been a long time...

As I sit here having just finished updating my "info" on my blog, I am trying to figure out exactly where the last 3 years of life went.  My 10-year-old is now 13.  Since I attempted to start this blog 3 years ago we have moved into another house (for those of you who know how we like to buy and sell-I hope this is it for a while) and I have been doing my best to balance marriage, kids, work, and nursing school.  I have to admit that the balance has been "out" more than "in" but I wouldn't trade it for the world.  Of course if I could, I would find a way to have more time with my family because so much has been stolen away by school.  But on the flipside, I feel totally confident that my getting a degree as a nurse is what God has intended for not only my life but for my family as well.  Our lives have been touched by some really great nurses over the years of complicated pregnancies and premature births and I feel compelled to "pay it forward" to the world.  As our family has muttled through the past 3 years of life + school I have learned a lot about what it truly means to live your best life- one day at a time.  There have been some tough days that seemed as if they would never come to an end.  But alas, they did and we all survived.  This time last Monday I had just finished my final exam and it was all that I could think about until it came-and went.  Now that I am officially enjoying summer with my family it seems as if it is only a distant memory-not something that consumed me a week ago.  While I make no promises as to the frequency of my blogging I do hope and plan to do so as time permits (for sure before 3 more years passes by).  I'm sure that summer will allow for more before I jump back in for my final year of nursing school.  When that time comes, hopefully I can at least find the time to allow a small glimpse of what it looks like to be living in my happy chaos~