The Junk Drawer: February 2021 Edition

Well, we finally got snow and a lot of it.  Here is a shot out our front door, but this was not the end of it.  I believe this was only after the first trip out to shovel.  Thankfully by the following week, it had melted away!  I love the snow for a day or two.  I look forward to it actually.  I just do not enjoy it sticking around indefinitely.

This is us...just hanging out.  I am sure glad I enjoy the company of these girls.  Kendall serenading us with her piano playing.

Sid just being a pre-teen.  Who know exactly what she was doing.  Selfies maybe?

I lOVE my Silhouette machine.  Just look at this beautiful white board I created.  It gives me so much satisfaction.  The clean lines.  The functionality.  The customization.  Aaaahhh!

I saw a sign similar to this recently and thought it would be a perfect edition to our kitchen.  Though Sid assured me that she already knows all of these conversions.  Is that why the cookies tasted like baking soda (just kidding)!

I love the market fresh flowers at Albertsons.  Three separate bouquets for $12.  They always put a smile on my face!

Sid and I decided to break out the perler beads last weekend.  Kendall was busy building a new house in minecraft.  

I was really getting fancy.  I need to snap a picture of my second horse head peeking through a horseshoe.  It is impressive (ha)!

I am so glad that, even though they decided they were done with legos, they kept some of my other favorites.  Who is the kid here?

The Titanic.

 Over the Christmas break, I decided to watch the movie The Titanic.  The last time I had watched it was with Kevin in 1997 (the year it came out).  He and I had went to the theater in Thousand Oaks, CA.   I am not sure what possessed me to re-watch it.  When I asked the girls to join me, they initially were not interested.  Before I knew it, they were glued to the screen and had a thousand questions.  How many people died?  How big was the Titanic?  Where did it sink?  How far down is the wreckage?  The movie is over 3 hours long, so I believe we ended up finishing it the next day.  

Last week I read that the artifact exhibit was at the Discovery Center here in Boise.  We decided to check it out.  

It was very well done.  When we first entered the exhibit, they gave us each a passenger card with information about one of the Titanic passengers.  

There were scale models of both the ship and the wreckage.

There were glass cases of artifacts that had been recovered from the wreckage field.  The exhibits were both amazing and deeply sad.  There was so much about that ship sinking that was a tragedy.  In one of the rooms they had a lifeboat lad out on the floor in which you could stand and get spacial awareness.  Many of the lifeboats went out half empty.  Even more tragic was that there were not even enough life boats for all of the passengers, had they went out completely full.  

It was also interesting to learn how the ship had been dubbed 'unsinkable' and that the iceberg had compromised enough of the ship that too many of the watertight compartments would be filled with water, precipitating the inevitable.  They had rooms set up that looked like the various rooms the passengers would have stayed in.  

At the end of the exhibit was a memorial wall.  We were able to look up the passengers that we had on our cards to determine their actual fate.  I think one of the most impactful things for me was to see the impact social class had on the ultimate fates of so many lives.  More than  half of the first class passengers were saved.  This reversed entirely as you went down in social class.  No matter the class, the sinking of the Titanic was a tragedy.  So many unforeseen events occurred, so many mistakes were made, and so many lives were lost.  If you have the opportunity to visit this exhibit, it is worth it.

I Love these Ladies.

We celebrated Valentines with our third annual Galentines dinner and gift exchange.  It has become such a fun tradition that we all look forward to.  Terrell hosted this year and decorated such a beautiful table and delicious diner.

We had lots of yummy desserts to choose from.  We exchange small gifts just for fun.  Everything was especially thoughtful this year!

I am so thankful to have both of these beautiful ladies close by.  They are such awesome influences on the girls and have so much to teach me about raising children.  I am glad the girls are creating so many amazing memories with their grandparents.  

My dad gets a break from all the ladies on this one night of the year.  I imagine he is pretty heartbroken that he has to watch sports and eat a frozen meal on this particular night - NOT!

Making History.

 A while back my sister sent me a link to a Covid-19 pediatric vaccine trial.  At first I was really unsure, but did a bit of checking into it.  The trial was limited to 4 different cities across the nation.  Meridian just happened to be one of them.  The trial was also limited to 3,000 kids.  I called and did the initial phone screening.  Each of the girls take a regular prescription medication, so I thought that might eliminate them as candidates.  As it turned out, the medications they take did not exclude them from the trial.

Next step was to ask the girls.  At first they were not sure either.  They read through the documents and had a few questions about the process.  We also learned that there would be a 2 in 3 chance they would get the actual Moderna vaccine and a 1 in 3 chance they would get the placebo.  One of the tricky points was that at some of the appointments they would be required to get blood drawn and have their noses swabbed.  I thought certainly this would be a deal breaker.  After some consideration, they both agreed to go for it.  

They are 2 of the 3,000 kids trialing the Moderna vaccine.  I am very impressed by their willingness to help advance the vaccine.  I know this is a controversial topic, but for them, they are simply proud that they are making a difference in hopefully protecting society.  I am happy to report that they both showed a tremendous amount of bravery and maturity at the first vaccination appointment (four hours long).  They survived the blood draw, the nasal swab and the millions of questions they had to answer.  You go girls!  One shot down...one to go.  The trial is an entire year in length, which includes periodic monitoring.

Marley.

Sid has been presented with a wonderful opportunity.  She has been invited to work with one of the horses, Marley, and to join the Eh Capa bareback riders group this year.  She is through the moon excited.  Her and Marley seem perfectly right sized for each other.  They are both small, but mighty.  It will take a lot of hard work and dedication, but Sidney seems up for the challenge.  The interesting thing about Marley is that she was a wild mustang two years ago.  Alyssa's daughter, Griffin, brought Marley home as part of the Mustang TIP Challenge and was able to gentle her.  Marley has a great demeanor, but is still pretty young.  This will be a great experience for both Sidney and Marley.  Here are a few pictures of Sidney getting to know Marley a bit better.  

My Future.

With my post titled, My Truth, I have allowed myself to be vulnerable.  Well, here we go again.  It has been 2 years, 2 months and 15 days since Kevin passed away.  I have been asked, or rather my sister and mom have been asked, countless times, will Heather re-marry?  Well, I simply do not know the answer to that question.  Here is what I do know.  Kevin was the love of my life.  Our marriage was a FAR CRY from perfect, but he was my very best friend.  

I had not set out as a young woman to be married.  I was very independent.  It just so happened that Kevin stumbled into my life.  He was my PARTNER.  We both brought an equal share of ourselves to the marriage.  He was my lover.  He was my very best friend.  He saw the parts and pieces of me that no one has ever seen.  I trusted him with everything.  I believe what we had was unique and rare.

I am the mother of two young women.  That is my first priority.  Kevin and I took the responsibility of being blessed with the privilege of raising two young women very seriously.  I am capable of doing this on my own.  God has blessed me with an incredible job and an incredible support system.  I am grateful for that.

Does that mean that a future relationship is out of the question?  No.  Am I looking?  No.  When I am ready, when my family is ready, I believe I will know.  I am not there yet.  There is no rush to get there.  When the time is right, I believe the opportunity will present itself, just like it did with Kevin.  To the contrary, perhaps it will not present itself.  I am okay with that option as well.  Life has a funny way of working itself out. 

So.Much.Fun.

 We have been laying pretty low this past year.  So, when the girls had the opportunity to hang out with a gaggle of girls, they were very excited.  Before everyone gets worried, let me tell you about this awesome family.  Sidney met this girl Liza through her school.  As it turns out she has four siblings and lives in Star.  They have also been laying pretty low.  The kids are all in Gem Prep Academy Online.  Their mom is a midwife, so it is pretty critical they take precautions.  Liza is crazy into horses and so is Sid, so the two of them hit it off right away.  The girls have been spending time at one another's houses on the weekends.  

Liza happens to have two older sisters.  One of her older sisters, Grace, is the same age as Kendall and they ironically have everything in common.  They both have zero interest in horses and like to read (and talk about boys, of course).  This past weekend it was Grace's Birthday, so the girls went over there for a sleepover.  They were joined by one other Gem Prep friend, Addie.  Sidney and Liza spent the evening riding horses, while the older girls did whatever it is that 14 year old girls do.  

The whole gang plus the other siblings played in the hot tub, watched movies, made dinner and generally had a whirlwind of a good time.

They celebrated Grace's birthday.  I love this picture, because their dad clearly looks outnumbered (lower left).  Hilarious.  Ironically their little brother, Puck, does not seem to mind all the girls in the least:).

My Truth.

The beautiful thing about this blog, is that it is mine.  If you came here, then it was of your own accord.  I say this, because unlike other social media, I am not pushing my thoughts upon you.  One has a choice whether they come to this page and read it.  This is my disclaimer for what I am about to write.  Some of you may agree with my thoughts, some of you may vehemently disagree.  So be it.  I have felt compelled for a long time to write about the spiritual struggle that I went through as Kevin fought for his life and ultimately lost the battle.  I was reminded recently about this struggle as I listened to a video by Kate Bowler for World Cancer Day.  Living a Chronic Life In a Fix It Now World.

I will do my best to organize my thoughts, but bear with me as I may ramble.  I will start from the beginning.  I am a Christian.  I am also an engineer.  I would say that these two things have often been in contradiction to one another.  It is fundamentally hard to live a life of faith when everything you know is based in science and fact.  However, my Christianity is just that - FAITH.  There are a million ways to poke holes in my beliefs, but I simply do not care.  I believe in the Bible.  It is FAITH.  

Now that I have established that, I will start with the day Kevin got sick.  Never did I ever expect that something like this would happen to our family.  It rocked my faith like no other.  How could God possibly allow this to happen?  To exacerbate matters, everyone had an opinion to share.  Granted, I believe with all my heart that most of these opinions came from a very good place, but they were hard to hear nonetheless.  Everyone seemed to have an explanation as to why this happened or an opinion about how Kevin should go about fighting his battle with cancer (i.e. naturally, medically, new wave, etc).  Thankfully, Kevin was very pragmatic.  I like that word, pragmatic.  I stole it from Roy.  It is perfect to explain the approach Kevin decided to take.  Kevin's approach kept our family on the rails.

As for the spiritual side of things, it started when one well intentioned person told us that Kevin was 'destined' to have cancer.  God had pre-ordained this for him.  This is where it started to simultaneously unravel and come together for me.  How could the God I love possibly be so cruel?  If I were to continue to have Faith, I would need to seek understanding.  

So often, when disaster strikes someone, the following scripture is thrown out: 

"No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it" 1 Corinthians 10:13

It is typically, ad libbed and leaves out the part that it is really talking about temptation, not horrible life circumstances.  This scripture does not say that God will not give us more than we can bear.  It says that he will give us a way out.  Sometimes the way out is simply the strength and peace to get through it.  There is no magic here.  We live in a very sinful world - starting all the way with Adam and Eve.  Therefore, we live a world here on Earth that is filled with sickness, death and suffering.  Bad things CAN happen to  good people.  Conversely, good things can happen to very bad people.  If we are dealing with awful things happening to us, it is not because we have done something wrong.  It is because we live in a sinful world.  THIS.IS.HOW.I.REMAINED.FAITHFUL.  Our promises are not here on Earth.  We cannot be protected from the world we live in.  But, we can keep our eyes on the future that our FAITH promises.  I suppose that boils it down in the most simplest of terms.  Granted it took me months to arrive there and years to remain there.

Then the awful happened.  Kevin died.  About 3 months after he died, my faith struggled like it never had before.  It was not so easy for me to rationalize.  I am an engineer.  I needed an explanation that I could wrap my head around.  My dear friend, Faith (yes, ironically that is her name), had sent me a book titled Heaven by Randy Alcorn.  My friend had lost her husband, Kenny, in a car accident when we were in our twenties.  

I will not detail the spiritual struggles that I was having.  I choose not to share those details with many people for fear that it will damage their faith as well.  However, let it be known that the struggle was very real, and my scientific mind was having trouble hanging on.  This book helped me very much.  To this day, I still have to pray and remind myself of the promises of God.  I cannot say that I have rationalized every detail in my head, but again I suppose that is why it is called Faith.  At some point, one has to stop poking holes and believe.  

I have listened to Kate Bowler's video (link above) many times.  It is very well put and sums up much of my heart.  There is so much in that short talk.  I know that she is talking about cancer.  However, this can be applied to so many situations we are facing in the world today.  Mental health, disease, tragedy.  At some point, perhaps we should stop trying to rationalize and start to love one another.  I continue to pray that my heart stays soft and my mind stays open.  I was not put here to be the judge and jury.  I was put here to love.  One thing I know for certain, and that I suspect we can all agree on, it is going to be messy!

Alas, It Is Finished and Other Ramblings.

I am semi-embarrassed to even write about this, since it is what I dub a 'first world problem'.  As many of you know, we installed LVP in the den last year.  It is awesome!  We also decided to tear out our old, saggy carpet and install new carpet in the bedrooms.  When we chose the carpet, we went with a reputable company and mostly chose based on the color we wanted.  

Well...it has been nothing but one huge problem.  The carpet, though beautiful, had this blue backing.  The blue back is supposed to make it waterproof.  Again, we chose the carpet for the color, as waterproof pads have worked for decades.  Well, this blue backing makes the carpet very stiff and difficult to stretch.  After about three attempts to stretch it, I filed a claim with the manufacturer.  Mind you, every time carpet is stretched, rooms must be packed and furniture move.  Of course, the manufacturer did not take ANY responsibility and blamed it on the install. Thankfully the installer, the flooring company and myself all agreed that was an unacceptable answer.  We all three worked together to make it right.  What did that look like?  We left the carpet in a few key areas.  In the areas we chose to leave carpet, they installed a second tack strip and gave it a final stretch.  For the bedrooms and hallway upstairs, they tore out the carpet and put in a beautiful LVP. The LVP has a core back that helps with both warmth and sound.  Costco had a great sale on area rugs, and our year of back and forth has come to a close.  I am super thankful that I was working with a group that had a lot of integrity and was determined to make it right.  Here is a picture at the top of the stairs.  It is absolutely stunning (words of Kendall).

Yes, I have been puzzle obsessed.  I found this awesome puzzle that is a picture of 'Stephanie's Canoe Rentals'.  I just had to buy it, since my sister is Stephanie.  I sent her a picture of the completed puzzle.  She loved it so much, she asked if I would frame it for her office.  Of course!

The girls found a package of crazy fake eyelashes that were left over from a Halloween costume.  Of course, they just had to put them on and take a series of selfies.  After all, it is 2021.  These girls bring such joy to my life!

 

Be Still My Heart.

Kendall cleaned out her room last week.  She had a journal that she 'thought' had not been written in.  Before I donated it, I flipped through to make sure it was empty.  I saw just a couple of pages had been filled out.  As I read them, my heart nearly stopped.  Based on what she wrote about Kevin, it was between 2014 and 2018.  To a parent, finding something like this is a treasure.  I LOVE the portraits she drew of each of us.