We’ve Decided To Build A House! #FredNMimiSayIDo

We’re planning a wedding, and now we’re planning on building a house. So how the heck did this happen, especially when we’re planning one of the most stressful things a person or couple can do.

Here’s how this all went down.

Almost two years ago, Fred realized it was time to buy a house. Unfortunately, he went out of the county to find a house. That would’ve been all fine and dandy had we gotten married either that same summer or the one after. Since that didn’t happen, my boys have gotten settled into their schools. I don’t want to have to move my oldest to a brand new school the last two years of his school. That just wouldn’t be fair to him.

You have to understand, my boys grew up for almost 14 yrs in the same town, and with all of the same kids. Buddy had gone to 3 different schools in the last two years (including the one back in Annandale). There was no way I could move him again. I would’ve married Fred and lived in this dumpy house for the next two years if I’d had to.

We could’ve moved into his house in the other county, but to have Buddy stay at the same school, that would’ve cost $8,000/yr! Then  if we moved back into this current county in a couple of years, that means Doodle will have to move to another school, then back into these schools, and build those friendships again. UGH! I can’t do that to him, so that would mean another $8,000/yr for him! Sixteen grand a year until we get back into this county? Just crazy.

Fred and started talking about options. We could rent his home, but recently, the rentals in his development have all ended up with police cars in front of them. Delightful, eh?

We could buy a house that’s already built, but most of the homes in this area are several hundred thousand dollars out of our price range. Our hope was to find at least a 5 bedroom, or a 4 bedroom with maybe a bonus room we could use as a 5th bedroom. Man alive that was hard to weed through.

I stopped looking for 5 bedrooms and on a whim decided to look at 4 bedroom homes figuring maybe one of the 4 bedrooms would be big enough for the youngest boys to share while still having enough space so they weren’t on top of each other.

Enter, a small development being built just a few miles from the house I’m renting right now! They have several houses designs to choose from, and we headed to an open house a couple of weekends ago. We walked through a couple of the styles the week before with our realtor so we had an idea of what they looked like. What we didn’t know was which plot of land we wanted.

Turned out they had the one lot of land that wasn’t at a premium price and was the biggest one available still! That was definitely the one I wanted, but we looked at a couple others as well. We also walked through the biggest home that was only framed in. I’m not someone who can imagine something that isn’t there. The way it was set up, we knew that was the design we wanted! It’s a 5 bedroom!

That means the kids will all get their own rooms, and Fred and I will have a bathroom connected to our bedroom. On top of that, we’ll have the most amazing walk in closet! I’m super excited about that. We’ll also have an extended porch and fireplace! Two things I’ve never had before in my own home!

We found out very quickly that we wouldn’t be able to change the outside design of the house. I had hoped to push out the entryway about 5’ because the stairs are pretty much right there the second you walk into the house and it doesn’t have an entryway closet. My dream had also been to have a sitting room where I could have a reading nook. Maybe one day in the future.

We’ve been able to change things inside the house. Fred’s going to get a Jacuzzi tub, we’re putting the fireplace along a side wall instead of in the corner, and extra windows in the living room. I’m a lover of windows! I kept looking for ways to add more windows. lol

There were things I found out we can’t change. I wanted to go nuts personalizing the heck out of the house, but the builder has asked us…well, me…to take it down a notch. I was already going on contractor sites finding their leftovers to see if I could use them in our house. Craigslist has complete, custom kitchens that people are getting rid of while remodeling their homes! I wanted to go gang busters, but I guess not this time.

We’ll have to live with the standard, new construction white paint on the walls and native Maryland plants in the front yard. We’ll have to live with it until we’re given the seal of approval to move in and then c-ya! I’m planting my own plants, painting the walls, and hopefully having a heyday. Of course we’ll have no money left after moving in, but I can dream for now. =)

Have you ever built a house from the ground up?

What I Was Born To Do: Be A Mom #imbornto #sp

I remember when I was a little girl, the one thing I really wanted to do was work with animals. I wanted to be a veterinarian, work with dolphins, or do something with horses. I loved all things animals. My only issue? I wasn’t a big fan of science. lol Doesn’t partner well with wanting to be a vet!

Life went on and things went crazy in our family. I grew up not realizing I had ADD. It really affected my academic life. I was more of a comedian and had very little direction in my life. Absolutely no clue what to do with my life. For me, that meant I had no desire to go to college. I mean, why go if I didn’t have any idea what to do with my life. It seemed like a waste of time and money.

Again, life went on, I got married and had two little girls. I was a stay at home mom at the early age of 22. I enjoyed it, but again, didn’t realize I had severe postpartum depression. For some reason, things like ADD and PPD were part of the vernacular AFTER I’d gone through them. As I mentioned in my last post about being a mom, I’d had issues with my first pregnancy and my daughter wanted to come early. I had to take medication for three months to keep my contractions at bay.

Jump ahead almost 7 years and I had my first son and then my second son. It was at that time that we were getting settled into life in our little country town. I remember joining a mommy and baby group, and that’s where I learned what I was born to be.

One of my best friends and I were talking because we both couldn’t figure out what we were supposed to be doing with our lives. We were both SAHMs, but felt like the world was telling us we needed to have “jobs.” It took us quite a while, but I think it was around the same time, we both had an epiphany. What if, just maybe, we had been born to be MOMS! Go figure! What if we were already doing what we were meant to do! What if we weren’t called, at that time, to work outside of the home!

It took us both a little while, but I think we both realized that was our calling. God created us to be full time moms and that was to be our job for a season. I can’t tell you how relieving it was to come to that realization! We’d had the support of friends and family, but in our own minds we felt like being a mom wasn’t enough. The weight of that guilt was lifted when we were on board with who we were meant to be.

It has been great, as a mom, watching my kids grow up to be who they are meant to be, too! my oldest daughter graduates May 23rd with a Masters Degree in Social Work. My next daughter has a degree in linguistics, and on May 23rd comes home from traveling to 11 different countries over the past year doing mission work! Both of these girls are doing what they were born to do! I can’t wait to see what my boys end up doing with their lives. They’re still growing into the men they’ll be!

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What do you believe you were meant to do?

Surprise Bridal Shower #FredNMimiSayIDo

In all the wedding planning, one thing that wasn’t on my list of things to do or plan was a bridal shower. It had never even crossed my mind to have one. I look back now and don’t know how it never came up in conversation with Fred.

What did come up in conversation was having lunch with a couple from church. It was something that was planned on a day when we had a lot of stuff going on. Fred was supposed to have gone to a concert with his daughter in the afternoon, but it was canceled. I was supposed to go to a baseball game, but the time was changed and I knew I’d have to miss it.

So, the day came. We dropped the youngest off at baseball, and headed over to hang out with the couple from church. You know what’s funny? Since the boys and I moved to the East coast, this is the only couple we’ve ever done anything with, and that was over a year ago. They had gone over to Fred’s to have dinner with us. Now we were visiting them in their new house!

It was an absolutely gorgeous day and they are living on the Chesapeake Bay. As in RIGHT on it! The drive to their house on the dirt road was gorgeous. We were a couple of minutes late because of baseball, and all I wanted to do was walk around the property and go look at the water.

Gail wasn’t in the mood for dilly dallying so she marched us straight up to the house and asked her hubby to get changed for our meal. She opened the door, but because it was so bright out, her house was almost pitch black to me. I could see the silhouette of someone towards the back of the living room, and figured another couple was joining us. Hey, the more the merrier, and I was ready for more friends.


It took a second for my eyes to adjust, and when they did, I saw a table with food spread all over it and a room full of women! I think they all yelled, “surprise!” but truly, those first few minutes are a blur. I remember feeling Fred push me into the house, or maybe it was Gail guiding me in, and I heard him say something like, “Have fun, I’ll see you later.”

I felt terrible because he didn’t know what was going on, and he wasn’t getting the lunch he was expecting to have. I also started bawling. I was so surprised and overwhelmed by what was happening I couldn’t stop crying. Someone said to me, “this is supposed to be a happy thing,” and the pastor’s wife came over to hug me. What they didn’t realize at first was that it WAS a happy thing. I have felt so alone for such a long time, I never would’ve even  known who to invite to a bridal shower here aside from a few people.



We all started in on the food and it was wonderful. One of the gals who came was Jennifer. She’s the youth pastor’s wife. I’d seen her at the church staff Christmas party, but that’s about it. She made my cupcakes and she’s a blogger at How To Cake That!! You’re going to love her site! Now I totally wish she’d be around to have made my wedding cake, but we already knew she would be out of town. Glad I was blessed by her coming to the shower and making the cupcakes. I know I want to use her again in the future!



Most of the women there I hadn’t talked to more than in passing and even one gal came who I’d only seen in passing. They all talked about various things, and it was fantastic! I have to say I just loved sitting around hearing the women gab. It was water to my thirsty soul!



THEN, they put me on the hot seat. I mean, literally made me move to a chair where everyone could stare at me as I opened cards and gifts. I’m not one who likes that kind of attention. I would’ve been perfectly fine sitting on the couch with the other ladies around me. Oh well.

 

I received amazing gifts! I got a crock pot, a blender, several gift cards including Starbucks, Home Depot, Home Goods and Visa, cash, a candle, a check to put towards whatever I wanted (the mission trip), and a certificate to a vintage store! I was overwhelmed. Here are these women, who barely know me or have known me for a very short period of time, and they showered me with these gifts and sweet kindness.

 

For the record, Fred wasn’t ever straight up told there was a surprise bridal shower happening. Gail hinted at something going on, but she never came out and told him. She knew that he’d say something. Turned out he almost blew it once because we knew we needed to leave the “couple’s lunch” by 3:15 because my oldest son needed to go to work. He said Gail would be done with me by 2pm, but he totally covered it, and I didn’t give it a second thought.
 
And, as you can see, I wasn’t prepared for a bridal shower. I hadn’t taken a shower that morning or put on makeup. lol I have to say, I’m glad I put on a decent shirt. HA! I was ready to hang out with another couple, not go to a party.



I truly was blessed. I’m not sure if you’ve ever been completely lonely and felt supremely isolated. If you have, then you’ll understand how meaningful this was to me. To all of the ladies who came, I want to say, “Thank you!” 99% of the time I’m the surpriser. It was great to be the surprisee for a change!

Do you like to surprise loved ones with a party?

Having A Sick Kid For Two Weeks Stinks!

A couple of weeks ago my son was extremely sick. Actually, he was sick for two weeks. The first full week of April he was only supposed to have that Monday off for the end of Spring Break. He ended up missing every day, but Thursday, and sending him that day was a mistake. When I picked him up after his school meeting, he was white as a ghost.

Saturday morning he was supposed to compete at the Naval Academy for SeaPerch. His team had been working on their underwater robot since November. We were only there for about an hour before I had to call Fred to come get us and take us to the dr.

I felt so bad he had to miss his competition, but he couldn’t even stand up. We never should’ve gone.

The doctor we saw wasn’t his regular doctor, but he suggested a cold medicine with and antihistamine. We picked some up on the way home, and settled in for the weekend. We followed up with his regular doctor on Monday who prescribed a zpac for him. He took that Rx around 2:30, and seemed to be better until bedtime when he showed me some bumps under his chin.

I could tell they were hives, but not like I’d seen them before. I actually called the after hours doctor because I’m used to seeing hives that are more like little pin pricks all over the torso. The on call doc said to give him allergy medicine, which I had already done.

He headed to bed, and about an hour later, my older son was going to bed, and told me I needed to look at him. He had gotten worse. The hives were on his face and a couple little spots on his body.

I called the doctor back because I was getting more than a little worried. She told me to give him a second dose of the allergy medicine and if he didn’t show signs of improvement to take him to the ER. Ugh, I really wanted him better because I didn’t want to go to the ER with that poor kid. Unfortunately, an hour later, he hadn’t improved at all.

These are his elbows when we were at the ER:

We got to the hospital around 12:30. This hospital had a pediatric ER so we were in a wing set apart from the rest of it. Man alive, that hospital was huge!! We’d never been there before. They ended up taking an xray of his chest to make sure he didn’t have pneumonia. Thankfully he didn’t.

They sent us home with a steroid Rx, and told us to see the dr the next day. We got an appointment in the morning, and headed out. He ended up having an ear infection on top of everything else. Poor kid.

These are his knees the afternoon after we came home from the hospital. And this is them starting to go away. You can see the white in the middle of the hives…when they were at their worst, they were completely red.

By this time, he’d missed a week and a half of school. Every day I was getting two calls and two emails telling me my son was absent from school. I had to call and ask for homework to be put together for him. The first week of school he’d missed the last week of the quarter. The second week of school he missed was the start of the next quarter! He was missing a lot of school. I was afraid if he missed any more we’d have to get a tutor to help him catch up.

I was taking pictures of all of these hives because like I said earlier, I’d never seen anything like them before. I was afraid they’d go away or they’d lessen before we saw a dr. or specialist. I wanted it documented because I really had no idea what was going on with him. It’s such a helpless place to be as a mom.

On Wed, the day he saw the dr and got onto a new Rx for his ear infection, was his worst day with his hives. The entire time he’d been dealing with them, he was never having issues with itching. He would rub for a second and then stop. He did amazing. The last day was horrible for him. He was so uncomfortable and his entire body was covered. Before they were migrating from one spot to the next, but the last day, they covered him entirely.

Thursday he was very improved, and we were hoping he’d be rallied enough to go to the 6th grade field trip on Friday, but he just had no energy. So in two weeks he missed his SeaPerch and his 6th grade field trip. Breaks my heart for that sweet boy.

I’m happy to say, he finally went back to school after being out for two weeks! I could tell he was tired from the full day at school, but his color looked good, no coughing, and no hives! Just praying he stays healthy. We’ve got the allergist appointment on the calendar.

Have you ever dealt with an unexplained illness?