Making people aware.

I told you that I would post again about last night. We hosted Amber and Vernon Burger at our youth group to talk about His Voice For Sudan. It was so wonderful. Vernon spoke to the students and shared the orphans stories with them, he brought together the fact that we can make a difference in the orphans lives, but through these stories and their impact on our lives, the orphans are actually changing our lives too. We are coming together across the ocean to be active in teaching each other...it was really great! So, I came up with an idea to help make a few dollars for the orphanage. We have a family in our church who basically runs the softball tourneys of the mid-west, they do all the t-shirt designs and printing as well. So I got together with them, and had Amber send me some artwork they are using to promote His Voice. We decided to do screen printing on site and let the students decide where to print. So, we had 3 different transfers and shirts in green, yellow, blue and red. once we sold 30, we made cost, so then everything else goes straight to His Voice...so here are mine and Andrew's. His is yellow, and he wore it and that is why it is wrinkled. The cool thing is that we have some left, and all the students wore them to school today, so people started talking, so now we have people who are calling to get their hands on the shirts...so I thought I would see if any of you would like to purchase them. We have them in S, M and L and in Green, Blue, Yellow or Red. They are $20 and all but shipping goes straight to His Voice for Sudan. Just leave me a comment with the size and color and your e-mail address, I will e-mail you and then you can mail a check and a shirt will come your way.

There is also a company called We Were Naked that is doing the same sort of thing right now. Their shirt is very artsy so check them out too. These are such great Christmas gifts cause you are donating to such a great cause.

Note the links all over in this blog so that you can read more about His Voice For Sudan. (and there are links on the right side of my blog)

Are you into any sort of social justice...Of course I love Sudan and am passionate about this cause, what causes are you passionate about?

Day 6

So many people told me that on the road to recovery, day 3 and 4 were the worst, well my Doc told me that day 4-6 would be the worst...let me just chalk one up for the Doc. Oh my gosh Day 6 would have been better if you would have just knocked me out! Saturday and Sunday were officially awful. There was a point yesterday where I had tears in my eyes, ice pack on my throat, and heat packs on my hears...I looked AWESOME!!

I was sleeping through the night all weekend, so that was good, but I welcomed today in at 4:00 this morning. I started having "dreams" yesterday afternoon. Yesterday it was a horrible nightmare, but the one I woke up from this morning was more theological. I was in a room and everything was black and gray and I was sitting on a white chair and i couldn't move, talk or swallow. I knew that every time I swallowed, it would hurt, but it would get easier for the next time. (which is how I really feel) So I sat there in this chair debating with myself that even though it is something that is really hard to do and I will have negative repercussions (like my entire body being in shock), that in the end, i will be really happy that I decided to do it, so, In my dream, I move my neck around a little and tilt my head back and muster up all the saliva I can, and then I swallowed...which woke me up and gave me chills. I sat up slowly Indian style on my bed and lifted my 52oz mug to my lap and took a sip. I held the drink in my mouth until it was no longer cold, then i took another debilitating swallow...Then i forced myself out of bed to take some drugs! I was going to try to go to work today, but because I feel that every time I swallow I really am making a life changing decision...maybe I am not ready for the office. So I believe this will be my last full day off of work.

Let me just say thank you to your encouraging comments to my posts, they have been really fun to read, so I will actually be posting at least once more today with some goodies, but for now let me tell you what I was supposed to be doing this weekend.

Andrew and I had concert tickets this weekend. The first on was on Friday night, for Andy Davis and Matt Wertz. It was at William Jewell college (my next door neighbor). Matt Wertz grew up here in Liberty and we are friends with his sisters from college, and we have been waiting for him to come to Liberty to play a show since we moved here! Even my mom was encouraging about the fact that "maybe you will feel good enough to go." But I ended up giving my ticket away and hanging out on the couch...It was a good choice, as I felt like crap, but I was really sad.

The second was on Saturday night, Andrew and I were given free tickets, (Really good seats) to see Switchfoot, Jars of Clay, Robert Randolf and the Family Band, and Third day(which I don't really love..but anyway). It was a huge habitat for humanity concert. Anyway, I was pretty pumped about that, but after the way Saturday started, I knew that was a "no go" before I brushed my teeth that morning...But, Andrew took Matt, so that meant that Jodi and John came up to be with me and give my mom a night off. Jodi was basically my babysitter. We watched Baby Momma, which is so funny, and then she got me water and I slept! When the boys got home she told Andrew that she was happy that John and I were on different schedules! It is good to have friends like that.

Moving on to Sunday and to wrap up a killer long post. I woke up a WRECK! I hadn't planned on going to Church in the AM, but it is my job to be there on Sunday night. I had two of my dearest friends, Amber and Vernon Burger, in town and we were doing a huge night about His Voice for Sudan, which I had been planning for about 2 months...so I was "out of commission" (my words for drugged beyond belief) till about 4:00pm and then I started to move around. I went and was able to even tell my Africa story, which probably wasn't the smartest thing I have ever done, but, I made it and it went well and all it cost me was a little bit of health...anyway, I will actually post more about that later, cause I have something cool to show you.

So I woke up at 4:00am, have already read and did my work e-mail and written this extremely long post. So it has already been a successful day! Now, to just figure out how to swallow? What did you do this weekend??

Update and a little craftiness!

Let me start with a mini update on my healing...the first 3 days were great, and then I started to heal, oh my gosh...me and swallowing are not exactly the best of friends, but me and Roxicet are. I am having problems not only swallowing but turning my head...and keeping my eyes open. I did watch the food network last night and it was a special on KFC, Wendys and McDonalds, and never before has a big mac and fries sounded so amazing...I drank water instead.

Okay so in March I worked on this project and I just realized that I never posted it. My mother and I are always freezing. Growing up, my mom got these corn packs that you can throw in the microwave for 3 minutes and you are good to go for like an hour or two. They can also be put in the freezer and used as an icepack. The thing about them is that they always smelled funny and there wasn't an easy way to clean them. They were made out of corn, so they smelled like popcorn. Well, I decided to do a little research and then make some of my own. I went with the easiest thing possible. you can use Flax seed and other things like that but i used the following.

• Cute fabric
• 1 towell
• 1 bag of long grain rice
• herbal tea bags
• Fragrance beads
• sewing machine
• sewing supplies
• ribbon and buttons

I started by cutting my towell into the size of heat pack that I wanted, then I sewed it inside out, just like I was making a pillow. Once I was done sewing, I turned it rightside out and filled about 2/3rds with the long grain rice. I made more than 1 so for some of them I put fragrance beads, not too many though, and in some of them I put 2 of the same "flavored" herbal tea bags, such as chamomile. once they were filled, I whip stitched the filling opening shut and then I shook them up to disperse the fragrance. Then I took my fabric of choice and made my own simle pattern to use as a cover for the heat pack. If they are cute or they match your accents, you can leave them out and they aren't an eye sore, but more importantly, you can take off the cover and throw it in the wash.

Here is the photograph of the heat pack and the cover. then I stuffed my heatpack into its cover and threw it into the microwave for 3 minutes.

Warm feet for a few hours.

you can close them anyway you want, with buttons, or zippers, or just a big tuck, but i like the buttons, It gave me an opportunity to try different things and use a fun accent color.

So, If your life is filled of cold people, think Christmas!

What is something that you would like to try to make?

perk of the youth ministry

Since the last post was ridiculously long and all about me I will give you a minor update. hiccups like crazy, choking on my swolen throat when I try to nap and I can't swallow unless I have something liquid in my mouth, BUT I actually don't feel too bad.

Now onto my fun post. One of the perks of youth ministry is coming home from work and seeing that students have been our house playing jokes on us. We had these 2 students, Taylor and Ben, Ben who is a senior this year and Taylor was a senior last year, who were pretty much a constant in the spring. We would get home from work late Sunday night and we would have things chained to a tree in our front yard, or all the furniture and plants on our side porch would be switched with the stuff on our front porch. we kept telling them that we would get them back, but we just kept waiting...anyway, one night they walked into youth together and I just new that they were definitley up to no good. we get home to find our yard like this.

It was pretty brilliant, and I laughed even harder when I heard that they were wearing Hasmat suits when they did it! I couldn't bringmyself to tear it down that night, becasue I really wanted to take photos of it, so when we came hope for lunch the next day, our mail man was walking down the street to his car, and we hadn't gotten any mail. When I stopped him, he said he thought we really were infested with esbestos, so he didn't cross the caution tape, which happened to be wrapped around the ENTIRE house. It really was funny.

So to get them back we waited until Taylors last day of school. we got his thier car keys and moved thier cars from school to each others houses. So Ben's was at Taylor's and Taylor's was at Ben's. We waited in the parking lot to make sure that they could get rides, and we wrote on thier parking stalls "Since it is your last day of school, we thought we would do something nice for you, and take your car home! you're welcome!" It was pretty funny!!

One other thing that they did was one of the many snowy days this past winter they brought an old dryer(clothes) and set it infront of our stars to get onto our porch, then proceeded to shovel the sidewalk, and build a snowman on the porch. Thanks for shoveling!!!

Out of surgery and out of bed

Well, the procedure was quick and I am officially on my way to health. I appreciate all the advice I got from everyone, I had heard so many things that I asked like 150 questions to the nurse! I think she thought I was crazy because between the questions and my excitement, she couldn't stop laughing. I think we would be friends. Anyway. They rolled me into the OR and it was freezing so they covered me with a warmed blanket. Right when the ENT walked in, he asked if I was doing well, I responded with the Poepel answer, "you can stick me and inject me all you want, as long as I am warm, I don't care." the whole room laughed and about 1.4 seconds later, I was waking up in post-op. I did cry for a second, thanks for the heads up Krista, and my throat hurt like a mother...but 2 slushies, 2 cups of icy water and 2 tsp of percocet I was feeling decent, and I won't lie to you, I was crackin some good jokes! I got home and drank over 200 ounces of water, cause if I wasn't swallowing ice water, I wasn't swallowing! As sleeping time drew near I could feel the swelling starting and I could also feel the scabs (which I know sounds disgusting, but come on people, everyone heals the same way) and my uvula, which is really weird. Even though I was really tired, I tossed and turned till about 3:00, took my medicine at 3:30 and returned to the Land of shut eye at about 4:30, by 6:00 I was just frustrated, I am so swollen that the way I was laying in my bed made me feel like I was choking and then i snored myself awake...which is sort of funny! So I got up and did some good ol' bible reading and checking up on my e-mails and now I am updating you. The funniest thing about this is that I have forgotten to spell went. Every time I have written it since the surgery, I have spelled it wen't. Awesome! Anyway. The plan for today is to not move and my Mom-in-law is taking care of me this morning while Andrew is at staff meeting and then my mom is taking a train in and will be here before I know it. I really think the recovery will be good because I am so positive about it, and after talking to my doctor last night, He called to check on me, he thinks it will be a thing where once I am healed, I will be shocked at how bad I felt before. I said to him, "I know you saw a lot of tonsils today, but what did mine look like?" to which he replied, "Your tonsils were not only shredded with craters, but each one had between 6-8 tonsil stones in them." Which is why we think I will be feeling way better when I am healed. I was just trapping infection. Sick! I had no problems with the anesthesia either. So, overall, other than not really remembering how to swallow, I feel decent enough to walk back and forth to the bathroom. I will post more later, to keep you updated. Thanks for all the prayers and concerns, advice and ideas! you are all wonderful. By the way, the Magic Bullet is amazing, if you are having this operation, or know someone who is, and you want to get them a feel better gift. It is perfect!!

Probably the funniest 3 minutes I have seen in my life!

Saturday Night Live this season has been slightly dissapointing. But this week took the cake for one of the funniest things I have ever seen. One in particular. It was the Lawrence Welk Show, Sister Act. If you are at work and shouldn't be on line, don't watch this, cause you will definitley be laughing loud enough to get busted. I am not lying when I say that I missed the entire next sketch, because I was laughing and crying so hard. I commented on Katies blog a few weeks ago about Tina Fey being the funnies woman comic around... She is hilarious, and a brilliant writer, but I have to tell you today that I think I have decided that Kristen Wiig actually makes me laugh harder with her characters...she is so freakin funny!!! So, check out the video link and have a good laugh! let me know what you think, cause I know I am not alone here. So, Here's to you Kristen Wiig, for making me laugh and cry!!

Family Day

Just in case you didn't know, I am from a family of 4. My mom and dad are Chris and Lonnie -Chris is mom, Lonnie is dad. My brother is Josh and then there is me. Josh is 3 years older than me. He is one of my besties. We didn't really get along very well when he was in his early teens, but once we both hit the upper teens we clicked! We love each other. There are times when we may not agree, but I am not lying when I say that I am happiest when laughing with my husband, and Josh and Michelle! (Michelle is Josh's wife, and of course Fred). This photo is really one of my favorites of all time.
So I have to tell you that Josh is an artist. He is pretty brilliant and I am so proud of him. He called me today to let me know that he officially has a website...finally! So you can either click the link on the right side of screen or you can Click here. But, come back and let me know what you think!


And I didn't have time to post yesterday, but it was my Mommy and Daddy's anniversary! So, Happy Anniversary! If I was a really great daughter, I would tell you how many years It was for certian, but I think it is 32, cause Josh just turned 31... Oh, well Here they are, my favorite mom and dad of all time! (if you read this before and came back...I did a lousy job in the math) It has been 32! Thanks Aunt Linda!