Can I do this?

Ok, people. Here is a challenge for you. Our pastor gave us a 40 day challenge this week. No, we aren't catholic, but it does coinside with lent. Think about something in your life that you give more praise to than God? Is it technology (iphone, t.v.), is it food? What do you spend most of your attention on?  Now, you don't have to give it up all together. You can just limit it a bit. You can't give up eating, but you can limit a food addiction you might have. But don't give up chocolate and substitute it with skittles either!  Anyway, my issue is that I read way to many novels. I read mystery stuff...James Patterson, Harlan Coban, Lee Child and a whole lot of christian fiction. The problem is that I should be spending more time in the Word instead of reading whatever novel I have chosen. This might sound slightly ridiculous to you, but I have a serious reading addiction. Whenever I have a free moment I read. I read four to five 300 - 400 page novels in week on top of all the books for four year olds that we have around! So, my goal is to focus more on christian non-fiction (like a biography or a book on prayer) and Bible reading instead of the fiction.  As soon as we started talking about things that we should spend less time doing, I was extremely convicted.

Happy Day?

Well, Valentines day has come and gone. No, I did not get my Lexus, but I did get a rice cooker that I had been asking for and chocolate strawberries. Can't complain! We played hookie from church and drove up to Indianapolis to see my parents who happened to be in town for the weekend. Lauren had been asking for days to go visit her grandma so we  let Lauren go home with them.  I will go drive up this weekend to pick her up in D.C.  I was so excited to have a day or so to get some things done around the house. I purged Lauren's room and sorted through her too small clothes. I got caught up on all the laundry. Now that it's been a day, I miss my girl! It probably wouldn't be so bad if we weren't snowed in here and my husband wasn't going to be at work all night! So much for my week of valentines.....

God is so good!

Lauren's MRI results were normal! Nothing abnormal..no tumors, lesions or anything scary. Such a relief. I feel like we can finally breathe again. When we told Lauren that they didn't find anything in her head she said "Oh, wow! Is it empty?"  Gotta love the way they think!

Valentines day is coming ...hint, hint

A girl can dream can't she?....sigh

The MRI Experience

We got up at 5:45am  so that we could be at Kosairs on time this morning. Everything is going well and we make it with time to spare. Lauren had not been allowed to eat or drink anything at all since she was going to have to be sedated. On the way there she asks for a piece of gum and not thinking I gave it to her. When the nurse asked if she had anyhting to eat or drink, we remembered the gum. "Lauren spit out the gum." I can't, it's in my belly!" So, her test got pushed back eight hours so that we could wait for the gum to digest!. It was great fun telling our child that she couldn't eat anything for eight more hours! When we went back to the hospital to get the MRI done we were quite entertained by a very slap happy four year old who was so relaxed from the medication that she couldn't even sit up straight and just giggled for an hour! At least now we know that when she is under the influence she is quite happy. :) It took her a while to come out of the sedation, but she seems pretty good tonight. Hopefully we will have results within the next few days.

Victory?

I think I may have conquered the caffiene addiction. No more splitting headache or serious cravings. The day that my headache was the worst, was the day that we ran out of tylonol in our house! I toughed it out and I am glad that I did because going through that much pain is enough to keep me from getting myself hooked again.  Geez, I sound like I've just been through drug rehab! Anyway, during this process I only let myself have diet, caffiene free drinks. I'm hoping I have cut some of my refined sugar addiction, too. It's amazing the things that we don't think are a big deal are really big addictions in our lives! I would have never thought that caffiene was that big of an issue until I went through this.

What was I thinking!

For some reason when I get an idea I have to do it all the way. Last week I decided that I needed to cut back on caffiene. No, I thought well, why just cut back? Why not just cut it out completely? This is day three now. Monday and Tuesday weren't too bad. Today? Well, today I want to hurt somebody. I don't know if it is a mixture of my sinus issues along with withdrawl, but I think I might die today. Lauren keeps looking at me very curiously and asking "Are you ok mommy?" I just close my eyes and moan in agony... I don't know why I couldn't be ok with just cutting back. A little caffiene is ok right? I am trying to cut down on the soda intake so I thought well, cut out caffiene! Next I will want to cut sugar completely out....somebody stop me!

Yummm....

Do you ever think about a certain food and you just can't get it out of your head? This was mine today.

Trip to Mississippi

These are a couple of pictures from our trip to see Paul's family. The top picture is Lauren and Nana. Nana is Paul's grandmother. The last picture is of Lauren and G-Ma, Paul's mom. (Lauren looks funny in this picture because she has a jolly rancher in her mouth!) We had a good time. It was nice to get away from here and be able to to take a break from everything that has been going on the past six weeks or so. Lauren really enjoyed spending time with her grandparents. I have some more pictures to post later. Our trip home was pretty exciting. We ran into a storm in Tennessee and ended up staying the night with my brother and sister-in-law who live right outside Nashville. Thank you God for family! So it tooks two days to make it back to Indiana. We were all pretty disappointed to see that our part of the storm only left us with about an inch of snow!