Thankful Thoughts

It's November 8, and I have been less than committed to my "November Blessings" this year. Since I haven't posted in a week or so, I figured it was time to update what I'm thankful for today.

Today, I am thankful for the right to vote, which I exercised on Tuesday. I realize how lucky we are to live in a country where we can vote (regardless of gender, race, or religion), our voice is heard, and we are given the opportunity to vote in new candidates over time. I believe I am so blessed to live in this country.

I am also thankful for access to great healthcare. I have had a variety of doctor appointments in the last two months or so, and I am so blessed that I have the financial ability to be at one of the best hospitals! My CF care team is phenomenal, and all of my other doctors are great too. I can't even begin to describe how different my life would be if it wasn't for this standard of health care.

And finally today, I am thankful for my insulin pump. I recently decided to go on the pump so that I don't have to inject myself 5+ times in a day, and so that I would have better control over my sugars. This transition really deserves its own post, and I will try to do that somewhat soon. I've been on it for over a month now, and I love it. My sugars are in GREAT control (80s in the morning, under 120 two hours after eating..wonderful numbers), and I only have to inject myself once every three days to change my site. It has made my life a lot easier, and for the first time (in a long time) I forget once in a while that I have diabetes. And that, my friends, is definitely something to be thankful for.

I have another CF appointment today. Last time, my lung function had dropped from 85 to 78. I never see numbers that low, and it terrified me. Hopefully this time they are back up. My respiratory therapist, who is amazing, will be there this time. She wasn't at the clinic last appointment, and my doctors said that they will wait to see what my numbers are when she is back. SO, I'm hoping my FEV1 will be at least 83! 

Halloween Fun, and November Blessings

Last night was a blast! Halloween is, by far, my husbands favorite holiday. He loves to decorate, he loves to see the costumes, and he loves to watch me hand out candy so he doesn't have to do it. This year was spent with our normal family traditions: eating big macs (a tradition passed down from David's father), watching scary movies, and enjoying our decorations.

Yes, our decorations are fun, and for many kids they are scary. We always have kids who have to bring mom/dad to the door because they are too scared to go alone, and we have other kids who hesitantly walk up on their own (parents laughing in the background), and they sit there and stare. This year we actually had a child try to come in our door to touch the decorations, and we had another girl who was so impressed with "Feddie Koogles" that she kept asking everyone to come see him.

A little different than last year, and you can see our orange and purple lights in the background on the walls. Also you can see the awesome cobwebs that David put all over the lower wall. 

Oddly, we had a lot of kids pass our house up this year as well. We've never had that happen before, but apparently other adults had the same issue. I'm not sure if kids just are unsure of how to trick-or-treat anymore or what. Although our trick-or-treat hours started at 3:30 so many people weren't even home.

Overall, we had a great time and we were out of candy by the end of the night! I always enjoy our Halloween celebrations, and I'm not sure what will happen once we have a kid. I'm sure they will change quite a lot.

On to November!

Since it's November 1, it is time to start my "what I'm thankful for. . . " each day I post this month. I have so much to be grateful for that it is quite hard to pick out just one thing to celebrate with each post so sometimes I will have more than one. Today is one of those days.

Today (and everyday) I am thankful for God. I have received many blessings recently, and I know that He is responsible for them all. I am overwhelmed by His love and power, and I don't know what I'd do without Him being such a big part of our lives. We are so blessed each and every day.

Today (and everyday) I am also thankful for my husband. David has been working very hard recently, and he has been helping me pick up some slack at home when I'm not feeling well. He has basically been running the house and managing a full-time job on top of it. I am so impressed by his dedication and love to me, and I wish I could do more for him.

As November continues, I encourage everyone to take a minute and think about what you are thankful for today!!

A Setting Change

I was notified by two readers, via Facebook, that my blog setting had turned to private. It means that some of you probably have not been able to access my blog the last few days. I'm really sorry about that! It should be good to go now, and tonight I hope to have Halloween pictures to post! 

Fading of Fall

My favorite season is quickly leaving me, and I have let it pass me by this year. I have been so busy with life that fall has seemingly come and gone. I look outside my window and see that most of the trees in my neighborhood are now bare, prepared for the winter chill, and I'm quite sad about this. Normally, this time of year for me is a time of picture taking, open windows, and pumpkin farms. This year, however, it has been a time of busy life happenings: doctors appointments, things related to David's work, lots of chores, extra naps, illnesses, and just being overall too busy to stop and enjoy the beauty of the season.

Thinking of fall passing me by, I realized that there is one tradition that David and I used to do all the time before we got married but have not done once since being married: carving pumpkins. I totally miss it. We used to each pick out a pattern from one of the books, enlarge it to our pumpkin's size, and carve away until we had some pretty awesome jack-o-lanterns. But for the past few years, we haven't even bought a single pumpkin, let alone carved one. I think the mess and time of it has recently outweighed the finished product to us which really saddens me. I feel like it's about time we reinstate the pumpkin carving tradition simply because it makes me happy in the end, and I can cook the pumpkin seeds (the funny thing is I don't even like the taste of pumpkin seeds, but I love to bake them).

This realization about the pumpkins led me to think of what else we need to do that we simply have never done together: apple picking. I love  the idea of apple picking, and I have never done it. I just have this desire to go and pick my own apples then come home and make a dozen different products with the fresh produce. I don't know why this idea is so appealing to me, but I imagine it has something to do with reminding me of many colonial literature books I read when I was a kid. It just sounds romantic, fun, and organic.

So, I'm hoping that before fall is over, we can at least carve pumpkins this year. And my goal is that next year or possibly the year after that we will finally go apple picking! I'll let you know how these goals turn out, but hopefully there will be cute pictures of jack-o-lanterns covering my next blog post!

Wishing all my friends and family a wonderful remainder of this beautiful season! Enjoy it while it lasts because the cold and snow is coming soon! :) 

Confession #3

Confession #3: I am NOT consistent in many things in my life...

As you can tell from my lack of posting recently, consistency is not my forte. I admit this, and I struggle with it on a regular basis. Trying to get a routine down is very difficult for me, and truthfully the fact that my treatments are done every single day is pretty impressive!  I have tried getting into routines, and I have failed miserably.  Really, any advice or tips I will happily take!!

So what have I been up to? Sleeping a lot. It's about all I do right now. I think it is due in part to the changing of the seasons. I'm feeling the need to hibernate, and I've been extremely cold recently. I also have been spending time doing things around the house, reading, and watching a lot of mindless TV. Yes, I've been lazy!!

Tomorrow I don't get to be lazy though. I have my CF appointment, and I just hope that my lung function is still good. I haven't been exercising as much recently (shame on me), and I really need to get back into it. I just hope that my lack of effort doesn't show too terribly on my PFTs. 

Confession #2

My second confession is that I rarely ever remember my dreams.

If I do remember my dreams, they are usually sad, frightening, or just plain strange. Out of the dreams I do remember, I can count on one hand the number of them that were really nice. I also don't have recurrent dreams like many do. Being married to someone who does have recurrent bad dreams, I'm glad I don't have to experience the same dream again and again.

As far as the subjects of my dream go, they are often about losing people in my life or being chased by a vicious killer, or a bunch of randomness thrown together. Just last night, however, I believe I had the saddest dream I've had in a long time.

I dreamt that I could never have children last night. I've never had this dream, but it was so sad and discouraging. I remember feeling extreme sadness and despair in my dream, and I was breaking the news to my parents with tears rolling down my cheeks. I woke up overwhelmed with sadness, and I'm still finding it hard to shake this dream from my memory. It was incredibly sad, and I sincerely hope it doesn't end up becoming a reality.

So after today, I'm somewhat glad I don't remember many of my dreams, because this one was just too depressing!