From the Plains to the Sunshine State ... and Back Again

As you most likely know by now, Erik and I are moving … again. Yep, for the fourth time in the three years we’ve been married, we’re packing up our life and moving. For the second time, we’ll be moving cross-country. After about a year of discussions and prayer, we’ve decided to move up to the suburbs of Chicago.

In August 2010, when we had been married for just four months, we drove all of our belongings from Normal, Ill., to Orlando, Fla., so Erik could attend the mental health counseling graduate program at the University of Central Florida. At first I was optimistic that we’d find a great community and possibly want to stay here. But it’s become clear that this is not where we belong.

We’ve attended two churches and five small groups in the effort to try to find a community. Could we have tried harder to make friends? Maybe. And it’s not that we haven’t. We just don’t have a tight-knit, family-like community, which is what we truly desire. As we begin to discuss having a family of our own, one of the most important things to us is having a good, strong support system. We don’t have that in Florida, but we do in Illinois.

Erik graduated with his master’s degree in May, freeing us up to leave Florida. There are a lot of details surrounding the move, so I’ll explain some of them here:

1. What about jobs? I love my job at Charisma Media, and am so thrilled that they’re letting me keep it! That’s right. They’re going to let me work remotely, allowing me to keep all the responsibilities I have (which are all online-based) while working from home in Illinois. What a tremendous blessing! Erik is still vigorously hunting for jobs, and we’re optimistic that being local will help him land something soon.
2. Where will we live? Until we get settled and know what area we need to be in for Erik’s job, we’re planning to live with my Aunt Tammy, Uncle Steve, and their boys in Naperville. Their house has been my home for the last eight years, so it’s fitting that it’s where we return. Yet another blessing that they’re letting us live with them. We are so grateful!
3. How will we get there? This is the most annoying detail. We’ve decided to go back the same way we got down here: Driving. With two cars and enough stuff to fill an apartment, it’s the most cost-effective way. So we will rent a truck and tow my car, and drive Erik’s car. Last time we were blessed enough to have help driving, but this time it looks like we’ll be going it alone. It’s about a 19-hour drive, so of course we’ll have to spend the night somewhere and split it up into two days. Nonetheless, it will be A LOT of driving. So please pray for us!
4. When do we leave? My last day at my office will be Friday, June 28, and we’ll pack up our truck the following day. We’ll have to clean our apartment and it will be a tiring day, so we’ll spend the night with some friends before heading out. We will leave the morning of Sunday, June 30, and hopefully arrive in Naperville Monday (July 1) afternoon or evening. I’ll then take off the first week of July to recover and settle in before starting to work from home on July 8.

Well I think that about sums it up. Feel free to ask any other questions you may have in the comments section. To all of our Florida friends, we will miss you! We hope to come back and visit again some day, though. And to our family and friends back in the Midwest, we can't wait to see you again!

Update on My Surgery: Good and Bad News

To everyone who has been concerned about me, thank you very much!! I really appreciate all the texts and messages I've been getting and all the prayers and thoughts for my well-being. It's been a long day, but I wanted to give an update. I actually went to work at 8:30 today because I had to finish something up. I was only there til 10:30, but it still seems pretty crazy that I actually worked today. It seems like so long ago.But anyway, the surgery went very well.
If you're like me, you've got to hear the bad news first. So here it is: There was a cholestatoma in my ear. The last time I had one was when I was 6 years old, but it grew back. I'm not sure when or why or how, but it was there. The good news: It was small enough that they did not need to do the massive surgery!! They were able to get it out through my ear canal. They made a cut inside so my ear is sore, but this is great compared to what they thought they'd have to do if they found a cholestatoma. Also, there was a chance that they'd have to get a skin graf from my thigh to replace bad skin in my ear, but they did not do that either. The doctor told Erik he was glad I made the decision to let them go in right away.

I woke up very disoriented and thirsty. They gave me some ice chips and wouldn't let me see Erik until I left the recovery area (which seemed to take forever). But they took good care of me there. They gave me a Vicodin pill, which helped. I also got prescriptions for an anti-biotic, ear drops and more Vicodin. Erik dropped them off on the way home, so I'll get those tomorrow. We may not even get the Vicodin if I don't need it. I ate some graham crackers in the hospital and a slice of bread from Panera on the way home. As soon as I got out of the car I threw everything up. I felt better, so I went upstairs (very slowly) and ate some Panera broccoli cheddar soup. I slept for about two hours and woke up feeling better. I finished my soup, but threw it all up about an hour later. I haven't eaten anything other than the soup and the crackers since 10:00 last night, so my stomach is pretty empty. I'm slowly working on drinking a smoothie Erik made for me.

My husband has been such a great caretaker, getting me whatever I need and being very patient with me. He has spring break next week, so he'll be able to stay with me as I recover. I will not know if I can return to work until I call the doctor's office next Monday. I think I will for sure stay home Monday, then see what he says about the rest of the week. The nurse said he may want me to stay home until my pre-op appointment on Thursday, but we'll see.

Thanks again for all your thoughts, well wishes and prayers! I got a beautiful bouquet of flowers from my mother-in-law, and a really sweet card and "Good Luck" balloon from my friends Jay and Carol were on my doorstep this morning. I really appreciate everyone in my life right now and am so grateful to God! If you live in the Orlando area and would like to come see me, I'm pretty much stuck at home for most the weekend, so you're welcome to stop by (babies and all). Peace and love to all of you!

Surgery on the Horizon

As many of you know, I've got a long past with my left ear. I had my first surgery when I was 6 after a cholestatoma grew in my middle ear. It's benign, but it was traveling through the layer of muscle to my brain, which could have been fatal. There were risks to the surgery, but they successfully removed the mastoid. They also had to reconstruct my middle ear and replaced my ear drum with a synthetic. When I was 15 the synthetic ear drum was causing me pain and problems, so my doctor did a second surgery and removed it. They also widened my ear canal and did a thorough cleaning of all the scar tissue that had built up. Three years ago I waited too long between appointments and they had to put me to sleep to clean my ear out.

Well bringing us up to speed, I haven't been to the ear doctor since that procedure. I went to an ear doctor in the Orlando area for a check-up, and he found a lot of build up. Apparently it's called keratoma, and it's basically scar tissue built up from my past surgeries. He tried cleaning it out four times after using ear drops for a few weeks, but there is still a lot of soft tissue lodged in my mastoid cavity, so he referred me to a surgeon.

On Friday I'll be going in for a surgical procedure. If all goes well, it'll only take about 15 minutes for the doctor to go in and clean out my ear. But if the doctor finds that the soft tissue is a cholestatoma, he's going to go ahead and do a larger surgery, which will involve making an incision behind my ear. It's pretty invasive and it comes with some risks, since the soft tissue is on my smile nerves and balance canals. It'll also require more recovery time. But the alternative is for them to finish the procedure and then bring me in at another time for the surgery. I'd rather just go right into the surgery, so that's what they're going to do if they have to. I'm a little nervous for Friday and almost wish I didn't have to wait two and a half more days, but I think it's the right decision. Please pray that all will go well and I won't have to have the major surgery. If it does come to that, pray that the doctors will do a good job and there won't be any negative lasting side effects.

The procedure is scheduled for 3 p.m. I'll try to keep everyone up to date, but I'd appreciate if you all kept me in your thoughts and prayers.

Dreaming for Deepness

I had a dream last night that really got me thinking when I woke up this morning.

Here's the gist of the dream:
I was dying, but not scared. I was almost happy to be finally on my way to meet my Maker and go to heaven. I delighted in the thought of being in the presence of God and leaving the darkness of the world behind. But when I got there, I was given a choice to either continue on or return to earth alive. I chose the world over heaven! Can you believe it?

I woke up shocked.

But then I thought about it.

Why was I so surprised? I chose the world over God everyday. Every day I am given the choice to glorify God or glorify myself; to lift up the kingdom of heaven or lift up the kingdom of me; to set my thoughts on the Father or set my thoughts on the world. And I usually choose myself, me, the world ... every day.

I'm glad I was appalled at the thought of choosing life on this earth over life with God. But the fact is, I do that already. And I don't get disgusted with myself or wonder what I am doing wrong. There's something wrong with this! I work for a Christian company, which is so amazing. I love being able to write about things that glorify our Lord and advance the kingdom of God. But if it weren't for my job, I could go days without thinking about those things.

I know I'm not alone. I need help. I have been a Christian for five years now and don't feel much farther along than I was on that day I accepted Christ into my heart as a 19-year-old college sophomore. And I know part of that is just the enemy trying to get me down and discourage me. But honestly, part of it is because I have done so much less than I'm called to. I don't read every day, I don't pray every day. I know I can't be perfect, but I can strive for excellence.

Will you help me? How do you find encouragement to chase after our Savior in the midst of your busy life?

Please pray that these feelings of yearning will not subside, but will push me into a deeper relationship with our Father.

Please Welcome Me Back

Well as you've all noticed, I've been absent from the blogosphere for quite a while. I had a few reasons for not updating. Part of it was just laziness, part of it was feeling like I had nothing worth writing about. I only have 6 followers and no one ever really comments, so it didn't feel worth it to take the time to write a post when I never got feedback and less than 50 people read it. But alas, I have returned. Who knows how long I'll continue to write, but I'm back for now! Too much has happened to update you on everything in the last 5 months, but here are the highlights:

In July we got to go to Disney and spend the day with our good friends Katie and Mike Gerber. We got in for free and it was Erik's first time. We did Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios and we had a blast! We even got to spend some time hanging out at Katie and Mike's resort pool, which was a nice break between the two parks.

At the end of August we moved. We found a two bedroom/two bathroom apartment with a washer and dryer, so it's a big upgrade from our one bedroom/one bath with no laundry in the unit. We also moved closer to my work because the commute was just terrible. We like our new place so far and the community it's in. Although we're a little farther from friends, it's just a minor inconvenience compared to the benefits.

Erik's mom and brother came for Labor Day weekend. We went to Disney again, but this time we got to Epcot and Magic Kingdom, so Erik has now been to all four parks. We also went to the beach and to Leu Gardens, a pretty cool little spot in Orlando. We had a good time visiting with them. We haven't seen my side of the family in 10 months, so it was nice to see family again.

September 14 marked six months at Charisma Media. I can't believe it's been that long!! I had my half-year review on Friday and it went really well. I am so blessed to be doing what I love. My team is great and I enjoy work almost every day. I am still the department's assistant, but I have faith that I'm where God wants me and that I'll get an upgrade soon enough.

This may seem minor, but we bought a bedroom set yesterday!! For the past 17 months our bed has been on the floor and we've used random pieces of furniture that do not match. One side table and the dresser were literally things people were going to throw away, but we kept them because we didn't have anything, haha. So it will be nice to finally feel like we've got an adult bedroom and actually have nice furniture in there. We got a headboard/footboard and rails, a dresser with a mirror and two nightstands and got a GREAT price. They were selling the floor model because they needed to make space for something else, so it was HALF off. It had only been in there for two weeks too, so it was in pretty good condition. It's getting delivered Tuesday morning, and I can't wait!

Well that's all I've got for now. I hope you enjoyed my blog. Feel free to leave some encouragements or comments below! The more people I know who read my blog, the more I will motivated to update it. I hope you all had a great weekend!!