Childhood Re-revisited

Our good friend John came over last Sunday with a gift for the kids. I was astonished when he showed me a four-wheeler (we used to call them quads) in the back of his car. Today we gave it it's test run for the first time. Here's a little video of the boy riding down the road.

Obviously this is an off-road vehicle, but we couldn't resist just trying it out on the road. The neighbors seemed stoked that we were having fun.

So, now I'm feeling like those redneck roots of mine are coming to bite me in the ass. We live for football season and we own a quad. Shit, I feel like a kid all over again.

This and That

We plugged in our old computer a couple of days ago. There was so much information in there that we haven't seen in a loooooooooonnngg time...we had fun going through and looking at some old pictures. Here are some to see. Remember that you can click on a photo to see it enlarged.







Seven Sisters (The Hoh Rainforest)

Sun In The Maple

Sunset on Second Beach (La Push, WA)

Forest Trillium

Wagon Stop

Fun Guy (Hoh Rainforest)

Oldest and Youngest: A Vet and His Grandson (My dad and youngest child, 2000)

Old Chevy

Another Sunset on Second Beach (La Push, WA)

There's also a whole mess of information that I was so excited to see again, including a book I'd been working on for a few years and my entire research project from 2002-2003 and the 19 page paper I wrote on childbirth for an independent learning contract. It's cool to look back five years and see how passionate I was about birth--and know that I still feel that passion. I have a doula client due at the end of this month. I'm so excited.

Remember a posting about Laurie Michaels, a woman here who had an aneurysm about half way through her third trimester of pregnancy... Her baby was born on December 12 (I think she was due toward the end of January)and she saw and held her baby for the first time on January 8. Here, again, is the link to her husband's blog. I cried when I read about her meeting little Ella for the first time. Here is a link to the picture of the reunion.

So, still busy, still loving my job, still loving my family more and more each day. May you always know that you're loved by someone. It's the most beautiful feeling in the world.

Raven Weirdness

Anyone traveling along the south end of Lake Washington on Highway 522 this past Saturday got a weird treat. About 10,000 crows/ravens were swarming and hanging out. It seriously looked like a scene from the Hitchcock classic "The Birds." For about a block and a half all we could see were black birds. We were sitting at a red light when I realized we had our camera and I took this small bit of footage. Hopefully you can see it--it really doesn't show the true scale of what we saw. Everywhere we looked, all the rooftops and any open ground was covered in crows and the sky was alive with black birds. I'm not sure they were all crows or ravens or a mix of both, but it was maniacal!

Another Year Gone

Another one afoot.

I am very pleased to report that mom got to go home on Christmas Eve. On Christmas day, hubby and children and I joined my sister, one of our brothers, and their respective families at mom's house to fill it with love and laughter. Mom was very tired but thoroughly enjoyed being home with us all. A more blessed Christmas I've never had--I felt the glory of the holiday spirit alive in the gathering of close loved ones.

I am loving my new job. Of course, there are some things that are annoying, but my supervisors are supportive and generally happy, my office finally has some light (!) and I am continuously given challenges and opportunities to exercise my knowledge and skills. I've only been there for about six weeks but I feel that I am in the right place.

My son is doing well. He earned 90 out of 100 points last week in his program and achieved the next "phase." He is now allowed four hour passes and every time he gets to another level means that he will be home sooner!

Midwifery continues to be on my brain. As I read posts from my one-time classmates (Niki, Louisa, and Tiffany), I realize what I gave up almost a year ago. I will one day go back to school and become a midwife but it seems further and further away. At this point I have decided to wait until my youngest child is a freshman in high school. If the time seems right I will pursue my education sooner, but if I stay on my current path, I will return to school in 2013. I will be 39 years old and my eldest son will be 22. At that point I will have to begin the program all over again. I'm OK with it. Five years will vanish in no time.

Mommy, Football, Holidaze

OK, I admit it, I'm a HUGE football fan. Specifically, I'm a Seahawks fan. For our holiday gift this year, hubby and I went to see a Seahawks game two weeks ago. We watched them cream Arizona from 16 rows off the sideline, right behind the Seahawks defensive bench. I was soooo thrilled. Here is a pic of hubby and me in the stands. Excited? Yeah, I think we were!



Here is a shot of some of my favorite players. Specifically, here is a shot if my absolute 'Hawk,' Nate Burleson, number 81, my baby, the one hubby needs to be afraid of! Hahahahaa, just kidding.

We got into a wreck on the freeway on our way to the game. It was minor and no one was hurt, but our Subie has a nice-sized ding in the rear. Damn ice. Always collects on the bridges first...

My mom is still in the hospital and likely won't be out by Christmas Day. She had to have a second surgery, this time to remove a small portion of her small intestine because some scar tissue was adhering to itself. We were all pretty worried there for a couple of days but she is bouncing back and healing well. I have a small hope that we'll be able to give her the awesome gift of taking her home on Christmas.

I've been thinking a lot about moms who don't get to spend this holiday season with their children. My sister's son is on his way to battle in Iraq, along with so many other moms' kids. Another mom I know is in the hospital because she had a brain aneurysm. She was approximately 33 weeks pregnant when she underwent brain surgery and gave birth to her daughter via cesearean section a few days later. She has not been able to spend time with her new baby and has not seen her 8 year old son since being flown to the hospital in the beginning of all of this. If you'd like to visit her husband's hospital blog, please go here. Both mom and daughter are doing well and I wish them well.

So many other moms lost their babies this year to many different circumstances and my heart is with them.

I'm hoping that all of you who celebrate this time of year are being safe. Many blessings of light and laughter to everyone in the New Year and always.

Iris

If you haven't taken the opportunity as of yet to visit my friend Iris, please do. She is an inspiration. Seeing her, talking to her, reading her blog always reminds me that there is beauty in the world. I've had the distinct pleasure of knowing her in a few different ways--when I first met her, she was the new girlfriend of a long-time good friend of mine; then she became a friend; then she became my partner in the low end, playing killer drum grooves to my weird bass lines.

But, I think we really connected throughout her pregnancy. I was so excited when she told me she was going to have a baby--then she asked me to be there and I about hit the floor!

Thank you, Iris, for being my friend and bestowing upon me the honor of knowing you the way I do.

I love you.

New House, New Job, etcetera, etcetera...

A complete, up-to-the-minute update would take me a couple of days to write and would take you way too long to read. As a compromise, I will give a brief update of a lot of the goings on here in Casa de los Guzstiltsmans.

Here are a few before and after photos of our new house. We officially moved in last weekend and have been wading through the aftermath ever since.

Here is the dining room before we moved in:


And here it is now:

The living room with a couple of our belongings in it:

The living room now:

And this is where I've been hanging out every night:

Yes, it looks like a moving truck vomited everywhere in the house, but at least we're here and the walkways are opening up.

Zack is finally in treatment. It's been five or more weeks since this process began and he's been up and down with the idea. He doesn't think he needs treatment but I keep trying to explain to him that it's not just drug rehab--it's also behavior modification. It's learning new ways to deal with stress and learning how to prioritize his responsibilities and desires. He doesn't see that skipping school to get stoned with his friends is a problem--he doesn't think education is a big deal. I told him to try telling that to some kids on other countries who would give anything to be able to go to school, but can't.

He doesn't listen.

I have to stop expecting him to.

But it's official...he lives with us. He has his own room and everything! My first born child is back in my arms...sort of.

My mom is having surgery today. Her body seems to be organizing a mutiny and each little faction is waiting for their uprising.

Last week she had surgery to repair her arm. Recall this post in which I described her car accident. I took her to the surgery center to have the pins put in her arm on Monday and spent the night with her. I came home Tuesday for a job interview and to get my family so we could go back down to Seattle to give mom and her partner (Chuck) a Thanksgiving feast. I received a call from Chuck early Wednesday morning saying that mom had been readmitted to the hospital late Tuesday night because of pain ostensibly stemming from inflammation of small pouches on her colon known as diverticula. She had been through it before and recognized the signs.

Upon arrival at the emergency room, with mom writhing and screaming in pain, they were treated poorly by a nurse who decided that mom was "faking it." This nurse even had the audacity to comment that mom started "really playing it up" when Chuck re-entered the room after ducking out to have a smoke. Mom was denied pain meds and treated like a prescription pill addict.

Finally, a doctor ordered a CT scan and confirmed that mom was having an episode of diverticulitis. Nurse Ratchet then understood that mom is not a raving lunatic and gave her a healthy dose of dilaudid and admitted for inpatient services. The doctor was very close to operating right away and removing her entire colon. However, he decided to be prudent about surgery, and opted instead to boost her up on anti-biotics to eliminate the infection and reduce inflammation. The next course of action would be a colonoscopy to make sure that the rest of her colon is healthy and then remove her sigmoid colon. The sigmoid colon is the lowest part of the large intestine, extending from the distal end of the descending colon to the rectum. It gets its name from the "S" shape it makes as it winds toward the exit. Mom had her colonoscopy yesterday and everything looked great. I just received a call a moment ago from Chuck that mom is heading into surgery right now. It's 12:30 in the afternoon. Please be thinking of her.

Last but not least, I received a phone call on Monday this week from the company I interviewed with last Tuesday and they offered me the job! I am now an administrative assistant for a company that assists developmentally disabled adults find jobs and housing and teaches them skills for managing their lives. It pays well and had medical benefits as well as paid sick and vacation time. I start Monday. I am so excited!

So there you have it. A (not-so) brief update. Hope you've enjoyed it.

I love you, mommy.