Thursday, January 31, 2013

A Glimpse of Red

Today, as I was cleaning the dishes, I had a brief moment of pure joy.  I could claim it was the selfless act of scrubbing dirty, nasty dishes for my sweet, adoring family that caused my smile but alas I am not a good enough liar to feign such piety.  Nope, it was one insignificant thing that made me smile, I caught a glimpse of red through the bubbles as I scrubbed the offending crock pot clean. I lifted my hands out of the wash water and took a moment to admire my sudsy hands tipped with shiny, fire brick red nails.
 I am the lone woman surviving in this house of 6 males.....actually 8 males, if you count the cats (and believe me you SHOULD count those little spawns of Satan, errr I mean cute, furry bundles of joy).   Finding a place in our lives for me to experience the pure, simple joys of being a woman is difficult to say the least but that does not change the fact: I love being female.  I love all the wonderful things that go along with being female.  I love silk and lace and perfume  and lotion, and make-up and high heels and jewelry and  fire brick red painted finger and toe nails.  I love laughing until tears fall down my face at insignificant things with my girlfriends.   I love crying unashamedly in moves and TV shows.  I even like the soothing ritual of applying wrinkle cream (I loathe the need for wrinkle cream but that ,my dears, is fodder for another blog).  I got down right giddy when my floral print phone cover came in the mail. I mean who wouldn't get excited over that, especially when they saw the center of each flower was blinged out?!?  Okay, my husband and boys thought me a little crazy for being so happy about it but hey what do they know?   I dare say few, if any men, would get excited to have half their eyebrows pulled out of their face using hot wax and little cloth strips the way that I do.  Yup, I love being female.  It is fabulous.
My normal everyday life consist of  video game explosions, super hero movies, debates on which super hero is best ( it's Batman hands down;), Lego's, Mine Craft, zombies, guy food, more guy food, and less than well targeted toilets.  It is nice every once in a while to catch a glimpse of fire brick red fingernails.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

A Glimpse of a S.O.U.S.

You may have noticed my lack of blogging over the past month.  I could claim that it was due to the busyness of the holiday season.  We had a fabulous holiday filled with all kinds of exciting things.  Our friends Rich and Cassandra visited us from Singapore/ China (they are missionaries in China but are based in Singapore), my parents visited us the week of Thanksgiving from Virginia (it is always nice to be surrounded by home during the Thanksgiving),  our son Sam celebrated his 11th birthday (time is flying by so fast), and we celebrated a wonderful, sweet Christmas and New Years with our children.  However, none of these are the reason for my unusual quietness.  This blog gives honest glimpses into our life.  I do not allow myself the luxury of pretense and facade, while still trying to maintain a sense of humor  because of this I am not able to write while in the thick of certain situations.  Some things require time and distance to be able to write about them with any objectivity at all.  Today I am breaking my silence even though we are still in the middle of it all.  This is the next step in my journey of transparency: writing (and posting what I write) while in the midst of the craziness and uncertainty.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh my!!  This pretty much sums up  December 2012 and so far January 2013.   The past month and a half has been fraught with unexpected, and quite frankly strange, emergencies.   At the beginning of December, I was sent to the ER for an over night stay due to what appeared to be heart problems.  Blessedly it was not my heart, but we found this out after an over night stay in the hospital and multiple tests and procedures over the next week.  Two weeks later, while my husband was cooking breakfast, a pan of oil caught fire.  It was not a minor kitchen fire (it melted the hood above our stove).  My husband received third degree burns on his right hand while bravely putting the fire out.  He is a computer programmer; so his work uses his right hand extensively, meaning he has been out of work for two weeks .  He is healing well and we are blessed that he has a job with good benefits so we are doing fine.  He will ,however, be out of work for another two weeks to convalesce and heal.  Finally, what we thought was my heart was in actuality a flare up of a disorder I have.  This flare up has concerned the Dr enough that he is going to scope and biopsy my esophagus once again on Monday.  This condition can build up scar tissue in the esophagus ,as well as, make the tissue very susceptible to tearing.  For this reason, I am on a very limited diet (think soup or soup like ) until he gets the numbers from my biopsy back.   This is the sum of of the past month for us.......wow it is even more crazy to read it all written down.
Throughout all of these situations we have been blessed by many people praying and caring for us.  A friend brought me to and stayed with me while I was in the hospital, another friend  baked my husband his favorite pie to cheer him up, my husband's co-workers sent him a cookie filled get well basket ( if you know my husband you know he LOVES cookies.  Actually, one of the first disagreements in our marriage revolved around the fact I made cookies to bring to church but did not make him his own dozen.  I now always make sure he has his own half dozen, compromise is everything in marriage ;), and family who have been checking in on us on a regular basis.  I have been overwhelmed with gratitude for each and everyone of you.
Every situation life brings our way can teach us or grow us in some way.  Funnily enough, what I have learned throughout the past month or so is that we are very, very blessed.  Even in the midst of chaos, we have a stability in our lives and in our marriage that was not there for many years.  Sometimes it takes a S.O.U.S. (Situations of Unusual Size ;) to see how far God has brought you.   Through God's grace, we have come a long way, baby!!  That being said, I am ready for a little bit or boring normalcy (well as normal and boring as Skiffdom ever gets;)
I pray each of you had a wonderful holiday season, prayerfully a little less eventful than ours;) Please know I am thankful to each of you who has stood with us through all the craziness.  Lots of love-Kristine

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