Modern MOM

Modern Mom is a website that I frequently use for all kinds of information. They also have what is called the Modern Mom insiders which I am a member of. Being and insider means you have the chance to host parties and try different products. The latest opportunity I had was for the new products by Kotex geared toward tweens. Having a tween/teen I was excited to host the party and share some great information and products. Modern Mom and Kotex provided all the samples goodiebags, treats and information I needed to host a great event. If you want to become and insider and have a chance for these oppurtuities visit their website and sign up to be an insider!

http://www.modernmom.com/

Free Stuff This Week

This week I have received a couple of wonderful free items in the mail. The first was a three piece Acne treatment system. I had forgotten I requested this sample a few weeks ago. The items as you can see are a full two week treatment. With a teenager in the family we will try this product and see how it works!


 My second free item is a pair of prescription reading glasses! CoastalContacts.com periodically gives away prescription glasses on their Facebook page. I "like" them on Facebook and have tried a few times to get my free glasses. You have to know your eye glass prescription and shipping is about twelve dollars but a great deal less than purchasing glasses. The glasses were regular $45 dollars. The information is easy to enter and I am extremely happy with my glasses. I hope they run this promotion again soon so some of you can get your glasses too!

Changes

Starting today I am taking at least an hour a day to go to the gym. I so wish I did not have to do it but the big 40 is approaching and it is only going to get harder and harder to lose the weight and feel better. Today also is the day I get back to my coupon clipping and meal planning. The last few months I have not been as diligent at clipping coupons and shopping for the best deals. I am going to start posting the good deals I find as well as freebies and other fun things I find. I also will start sharing the sites I go to that giveaway house parties. Tomorrow will be the first post featuring the site House Party.  Enjoy!

2011

It has been two months since I blogged. I took a break. I needed time to grieve and cry and figure out this whole death business. What I learned is that it never really makes sense. I mean the logical, educated, Christian side of me knows why my Dad had to leave us. The daughter side of me still looks to heaven and wonders, what the heck! Why my Dad? For that reason I was so relieved when the calendar changed over to 2011. 2010 was an AWFUL year. Not just because of my Dad but for other events as well. But they are in the past and there is no looking back. It is a new year and time to start again.  I have never made resolutions because how can you say you are going to do something without taking into consideration all the outside forces just waiting to derail your good intentions. That being said I have a few things that I need to do in 2011. They are things just for me. Not for my loving husband or my daughter or anyone else, just me. That alone is probably shocking to those who know me. I never put myself first, but this year I am. I am also not broadcasting to everyone what these things are. If I accomplish one or none of these items I only have to answer to myself.  It will be a long year and I will probably fall of track once in a while but I know I can do anything. 2010 tried and tried again to knock me down. A few time I was not sure if I could get up. But I did. In 2011 I can do anything.

Moving on and Happy?

Wow it has been a fast six weeks. If someone would have said six weeks ago we would be where we are I would have laughed in their face. We have all had our good and bad days but the days of all consuming grief are almost non-existent. There are still times I catch myself replaying the events of my Dad dying. Wondering if he heard us, wondering if he knows how much we love him. But then I tell myself to stop and move on. Halloween was one of his favorite holidays and we all knew we had to make it special. We had to start making new memories. We were successful. At first I was not sure if Madison was going to make it through, but in the end once she saw all the kids having fun she could not stay in her unhappy place(as she calls it). My Mom also did great dressing up as Lady Gaga and being silly and truly enjoying seeing all the little kiddies. Once again she is showing us how to live.

The past six weeks I also was enrolled in on of my toughest classes. Whitworth requires all students to take CORE classes. I had been putting off this class until I could not avoid it any longer. Thankfully the class went well and really taught me a great deal about philosophy, religion and myself. I have a mere 5 classes left. I am so ready to be done but I have to stay focused and get through one class at a time. This weekend is the first one in quite a while where there is no homework looming or some event to get to. I just want to stay home and read magazines, watch football and enjoy some time with my husband and daughter. We're happy. That still seems strange.

My Daddy Went to Heaven

This blog has been stirring in my mind for almost three weeks now. I wanted to make sure I could write it without crying. But I can't. The surgery was September 8, 2010. It went great. He made it through an 8 hour surgery. He came out looking great and we were thankful. The doctor told us healing for a week and then we would see if he could eat and drink without the esophagus leaking. He pushed himself to get up, he was tired, little things came up. I spent my days with him. Mostly he would sleep. A few times he made comments that made no sense at the time but as we put the events together he was starting his journey. A week after surgery the tube came out and he ate. For the first time since May he ate. Then he slept more and more and made sense less and less. Mom and I knew what was happening though we hoped we were wrong. It was Sunday night and the call came. My little sister and I went to the hospital and all we could do was peek in the room as we walked by. He was struggling to breath, his eyes were closed and I am so glad he did not see us. He would have seen the sadness and fear in our eyes and it would have been too hard. The chaplain talked to my sister and I. The logical side of me knew it was time. He fought for 14 years. We had our time. I could not ask God not to take him. It was another family's turn. But the little girl in me wanted my Daddy to keep living. I wasn't ready to say goodbye. I wasn't ready to let God have such a wonderful man. But God had already made his decision.





We moved to CICU. I hated it there. There was another family there losing a young girl who was in a car accident and they were donating her organs. I admire them so much for giving life. They went right down the hallway we went left, to let our loved ones go to heaven. I said good-bye and knew he had already gone. But he heard me. I cherish that the last words he said to me were, I Love you Dawner. My nickname he gave me 30 years ago. My Dad. Then man who taught me so many things. I am who I am because of how he and Mom raised us. Had he not come into our life we all would be different people. He showed me that blood means nothing when it comes to being a Dad. He took care of us when we were sick, he was our biggest cheerleader, he knew we could do anything we set out minds too, he expected us to treat others with respect, he taught me to tell others I love you, he walked me down the aisle and he was the most wonderful Papa to my little girl. At 9:30 am he was officially gone. I felt sad yet relieved the pain was gone. I know he went to heaven and will visit us when he can. His legacy is us. HIS KIDS. Everyday I think of him. Some days have been better than others. Everyday now is a first. The first day back to school since he left us, my first birthday in 30 years without him, the first month without a least one of his doctor appointments on my calendar. It is hard but I know it does no good to stop living. He would hate that. So we get back to living. We are the family he created. So we go out and make him proud. Make him laugh. Make him shake his head. But most of all love one another. After all that is what he did for us. He simply loved us.

The C-Word

The dreaded C word. Cancer. My family like most families has been effected by this gruesome disease. I remember the moment my Mom told me that my Dad (Gordie) had cancer. Keene and I had just moved to Illinois and I was miserable. I was trying to figure out how to live somewhere that was so completly opposite of my comfort zone and we were newly married. It was a tough time. When I heard those words," he has cancer". I was so emotional. It was 1996 and the type and stage of cancer he had was life ending.

I remember driving home from Illinois in the middle of winter, watching half of America out my window and wondering how this was going to change not only me but the family. Little did I know that the dreaded C word made us better. We learned what strength really was. We learned that you can beat cancer. In fact you can keep beating it. I have seen it twice. I have also been witness to its destruction.

My biological Dad (Pat) died at the age of 51. I was 30. We were not close. His death rocked me to the core of my soul.  Patti, my sister,told me the news on that April day. I heard the words and went into this fog. I saw and heard everything but I was outside of myself. It was as if I was a witness not a participant in myself. The feeling of emptiness in my stomach and the swirling of thoughts and memories in my head was like a roller coaster ride I could not get off. Just when I thought the ride was over back up the summit I went.

Eventually the twists and turns were easier to deal with and the ride came to a stop. Patti and I have talked hours upon hours about losing a parent who was not really present in your upbringing or your life. The raw emotions that come out of you that you thought were buried or non-existent are startling. The reality of saying good-bye again. It was as though he was always leaving us. This time though the cancer took him.We would never get any answers to the Why. It took awhile but she and I figured it was OK to never get the answers maybe he did not know them either.

And now the C word is poking its head into my sister's life. After having two parent's have cancer I naively thought that entitled us to a free pass from any other run ins with the nasty invader. Then she called and said I have to go in for a throat biopsy.

Again I heard her but I felt myself slip out of myself ever so slightly. She needs me to talk about it. I have not figured out a way to do that yet. There were no cancer cells. But that is not an all clear. Every six months she is going to have her throat stretched and biopsied. The disease has a name. I Googled it. It is not a death sentence, but it is in her life, inside of her. It is in my life. Again. It always will be.

No matter how hard Dad fights or Patti fights or how many family members we have lost, it is not going away. I can't run away from it. I can't bury it like before. I get to face it. I get to take these rides on the cancer roller coaster. We have been through the ups and downs and loopty loops before and we will do it again. I will give her my strength.  We will trust that our faith in family, and God will guide us on this journey just as it has in the past. And if I get lost or start to wander into that fog outside of myself I know she is there. Waiting for me to look in her steel blue eyes and let the words and emotions flow. Face that darn disease together again.