A Part of my Heart...My Otis

Otis.  The first love of our lives, ever.  He's our first born.  He's our white boxer. 
10 years ago, during one of the worst times in my life, I got a phone call at work from Kevin's cousin who had been taking care of our dog, Fatman, who was deathly ill from heartworms.  She told me that it was time. So I gave her the go ahead.  That evening I got a call from her again, which I thought was weird.  So I answered the phone and she said we just got a litter of boxer puppies and there are 2 white ones, do you want one?  I immediately told her yes and you have to keep it a secret. We decided we weren't going to tell Kevin.  13 weeks later she pulls in our driveway, and Kevin looked out the window and of course asked why she had just driven down here 2 hours when it was already so late in the afternoon. I said I have no idea...she got out and this little white wrinkly thing was wiggling around in her arms.   Kevin looked at me and said "what in the hell is that?"  And I told him, I don't know, why don't you go find out. He looked at me and took off running out the door.  And that was it, our hearts melted and we were changed...forever. We were officially, A Boxer Family, and never looked back.

We never looked back,  until this June, 10 years later.  When we took him in for what we thought was a regular check up.  And then Kevin calls me at work, and I can't understand a word he's saying to me.  He's crying so hard that he had to pull over the car and catch his breath.  I haven't heard him cry like that since Noah was born.  So finally I could make out a couple of words that are coming from each sob.  "Otis...cancer."
My heart stopped.  I couldn't hear anything.  My head was spinning.

Our AMAZING vet told us that he had stage 4 lymphoma.  With chemo it could get rid of it and he could go into remission or not.  And without the chemo, we had probably 2 months before he was gone.  We decided no chemo.  I saw what it did to my dad, and I wasn't having it.  We put him on prednisone to help shrink the tumors.  They literally went from half dollar size to pea size in days!  His attitude completely changed, he was happy, playing, eating! 
Then about 2 and a half months down the road, it all changed.  He stopped eating, playing he just stopped.  Otis went from 75 pounds to around 49 pounds.  The prednisone had stopped working.  It didn't even make him hungry anymore. 
It was time.  So a little over 3 months from when we got the diagnosis, we had to help him cross the Rainbow Bridge.  It was most definitely one of the hardest days we've been through in probably the 17 years we've been together.

We know he's in the best place and will be waiting there for us all wiggly and excited...lets just hope he doesn't pee every where when we get there!
So after you read this, go hug your fur babes.  And cherish the short amount of time you have on earth with them.

Trying not to lose it...

So in the midst of both of us being unemployed, the start of school, and everyday life, we have stumbled into a stress that neither one of us ever saw coming. 

Our oldest is scared to go to school.  I know, you're like, What?  Scared to go to school?  Yes, I know, he's 8 years old and in the 3 rd grade.  Yes, I know that this doesn't sound anything like the kid rockin' out in the middle of the Christmas program every year.  Yes, I know it doesn't sound like the kid that got a standing ovation at the talent show for busting some awesome moves to the song "Dynamite".  I know, that this is not the fun loving, ball of energy that we've raised, there is something wrong, and I don't know what it is.  And quite frankly its pissing me off that I don't know how to fix it. 

Noah - doing his favorite thing ever - DANCING - for no reason other than there is music playing somewhere!

This year at school if you miss 16 days over the year, you have to repeat the grade you're in.  I am trying really hard to make it so he won't have to do that.  We're knocking on the 3rd week of school's door...and he's only been there 3 full days!  It started on the 3rd day, Monday.  He had a belly ache.  No fever, just a belly ache.  I sent him on his way.  An hour later, the nurse is calling me.   I told her "lets wait and see how he does after lunch" and proceeded to call the school counselor.  We figured out that it all started when my husband lost his job on November.  It was eye opening to finally figure out what was causing this, but he still wouldn't tell us why he was SCARED to go. 

When Kevin lost his job, mind you, that for the last 10 years he was gone.  And I don't mean just gone to work Monday through Friday 8 -5.  He was literally not even in the state of Missouri.  He would have to work out of town for days, weeks,  and sometimes months at a time.  We got used to it.  We had a routine, we were OK.  Then it all stopped.  It took some adjusting, but we finally got through it.  Then all of a sudden, Noah would "feel sick" before school.  OK.  He'll just stay home and get better.  Then it was twice a week...3 times a week...every Monday, every Tuesday.  What is going on?   I was the only one working in my office at the time, I didn't have time to fight with him everyday. If he wasn't going to get up,  well then whatever...goodbye!  Yes its completely my fault for all of the school he missed in the second grade.  I'm not going to lie, I let him skip school.  I didn't know there was some sort of underlying issue.

My mother in law came up to talk to him and see if he would tell her anything at all.  Come to find out he was scared to tell us thinking it would upset us.  He's scared to go because he thinks something will happen to him at school or on the bus, or something will happen to us and no one will be able to get to him and he won't know what to do.

When school shootings or horrible tornadoes happen, I never know what I'm supposed to do.  Am I supposed to talk to him about it? Am I supposed to ignore it?  Am I not supposed to have the TV on at all?  Or the radio?  What about the 9/11 memorials that will be broad casted in September, are those okay?  What about the books that he wants to read...the "I Survived" books, are those appropriate?  I don't want to shelter him, but I don't want him to be scared.  I'll be honest, when the Connecticut shooting happened in December, the first thing I did, besides bawling my eyes out, was hug my kids tighter than I've ever hugged them before.  I'm sure a lot of parents did that.  When the Oklahoma tornado happened this year and all those babies passed in the school, I cried, I hugged my kids tight and prayed that neither one of those things ever happens to either one of my babies.  Just like a million other parents, I'm sure.

Noah on his first day of school.

So as we go to doctors, and counselors,  and talk to his friend's moms, maybe start going church, have a schedule, have a go to school prize chart, I ask, are you paying attention to what your kids see, hear, and soak up like a sponge?  I know that I will be more active in that for sure.  I know I can't keep him from everything.  I know that, I don't even know if that's the right thing to do.  But I can promise that we will do whatever it takes to figure this out and help him through it. 

Maybe his teacher was right when she said: "God had you lose your job for a reason and this was it.  To make sure that you saw what was going on with your son, and to be able and available to fix it."  I know I'm not happy that I lost my job, but if this was the reason, then so be it, but as soon as he's better...please give me a job!  I guess there's really nothing left to say but...Really?  This is your plan?

Can we just get through the toddler years...PLEASE?

My daughter is 3.  She doesn't want to have anything to do with potty training.  She still takes a binky.  She still takes...a bottle to go to bed.  *GASP*

Look, I told her that the binky fairy was going to come.  She screamed, "No", and told me that "Tinker Bell can not come take her "beebees" to give to other babies because she needs them!"  I know that what I'm doing, by not taking these things away, is wrong, but she's my baby.  There isn't going to be any more babies after her.  And to be quite honest, it really is cute when she sucks on her beebee.  UGH!  There I go again...it's cute.  But, it's not, it really is disgusting if you think about it.  I could be stunting her speech patterns, jacking up her already jacked up teeth (which I secretly love because she got my dad's teeth).  I just don't have the heart to take them away, or the patience to hear her scream for her baba, and beebee. I'm at a crossroads with this.  I hate all of it, it really does drive me up the wall, and to be honest, I don't know how to do it.  Do I do it all at the same time?  Do I do it one week at a time?  Or over the next few months?  I figured that when I lost my job, "great!  now I can work on these things with her", yeah, that went out the window the first week...I don't know where to start!

Seriously...how cute is that?

I figured when I told her about the binky fairy it would be really exciting.  I told her that Tinker Bell needs her to hang her binkies from the trees in the front yard, because she can't come in the house because the dogs might scare her.  After Tink and her friends come get the binkies they will leave her a new fairy baby.  She really liked that idea, but then the thought of not having her binkies anymore ran through her little mind and she...wait for it...wait for it...PANICKED!  Now, anytime that I say anything about the binky fairy, she throws her sweet little hands over her mouth protecting her precious binky.  

Come on now!  Seriously?  I've tried having her hand it to me when she wakes up in the mornings  - um, no. I've tried the "bedtime only" thing - oh, hell, no!  I've made her throw the broken ones away, and she takes it over to the shoe basket and says "okay mommy, i put it in trash".  Yeah honey, that's not the trash.  I have even cut the tips off of broken ones in front of her - you would have thought that I stabbed her in the eye with a stick.  What are these things, baby crack?  She literally hoards them like a squirrel hoards nuts for winter, but then can't remember where she put them.  Whoever invented these things, was laughing all the way to the bank! 

I do have moments where i see the clouds clearing; when she hands it to me and says "here go mommy, I have it later".  Maybe one day she will just drop all of this stuff, on her own, but I'm not holding my breath. At this point, I'll be happy if she doesn't go to kindergarten with the disgusting, vile thing!

2 easy-peasy chicken recipes!

I am a chicken eater!  I don't really like much "meat-meat" unless it's a steak or something grilled.  My constant "go-to" recipe is Chicken and Noodles with mashed taters.  I make it at least once a week in the winter and once a month in the summer.  I grew up eating this, and it was always my favorite!  The second recipe today is Chicken Enchiladas.  It's also a "go-to" because, hello...it's simple!  I bought 1 whole chicken at the store for both of these recipes, and you could always get more than 2 dinners out of a whole chicken depending on how many pounds it is.  This one was 5 pounds.  So, I boiled the chicken with a few carrots, celery leaves and a couple of stalks, and half of an onion until it basically fell apart.  Save the broth for the Chicken and Noodles.  Dump the veggies, and debone the chicken until you can't get anymore meat off the bone.  Separate so you have at least a pound for each recipe.  Any left over - hell - save it for something else!  The more dinners you can use it in, the cheaper each one becomes!

I do all my grocery shopping at Aldi and Food Giant here in good ole Cape Girardeau.  Aldi because everything is so cheap and still a great quality!  Food Giant because, please...it's close to my house and I really like the people that work there!  Here's my shopping list for these 2 recipes.

• whole chicken
• wide egg noodles
• potatoes
• enchilada sauce (2 cans)
• sour cream
• cheese (i used the block cheese to help save money, but you can also use shredded cheese)
• burrito size tortillas

For the Chicken and Noodles total price for the entire meal was $4.21!  Can you believe that?  $4.21!!! That equals out to $1.05 for each serving (4 people)!  Pretty hard to beat!

For the Enchiladas the total price for the entire meal was $8.65.  Which equals out to $2.16 for each serving. Not as cheap as the other, but still pretty cheap!

Okay, here are the recipes, with pictures for you viewing pleasure!

Chicken & Noodles (comfort food for sure!)


1 lb. shredded chicken
leftover chicken broth from boiling the chicken
1 package wide egg noodles
about 2 lbs. potatoes

Make sure you cook the potatoes before the noodles, or you will have cold noodles and hot potatoes.  Boil cut up potatoes, drain, mash to your liking.
You may need to add a little water to the broth depending on how much it boiled down when cooking the chicken.  Bring broth and water mixture to a boil.  Add egg noodles, lower the temp to medium or it will boil over.  Cook noodles until they are done, add shredded chicken, and heat through.
DONE!  Fast and easy, especially if you cooked the chicken the day before!
Plop some taters on a plate or in a bowl, put a little dent in them, top with noodles.  Now if you're like me, you want juice...if you're like my kids and my husband, no juice; add however much juice you want or don't want.  Salt and pepper to taste...YUMMO, ENJOY!

Chicken Enchiladas


1-2 lbs. shredded chicken
1 can enchilada sauce
1/4 c. sour cream

6-8 tortillas
1 can enchilada sauce
shredded cheese
sour cream

Heat to boiling the shredded chicken with 1 of the cans of enchilada sauce and 1/4 cup sour cream in at least a 10 inch skillet.  Spray a 9x13 cake pan with non-stick cooking spray.  Lay out a tortilla, put a large spoonful of the chicken mixture in the tortilla, roll up and place in pan with seam side down.  Continue until the pan is full.  Cover with the 2nd can of enchilada sauce.  Place in a 350 degree oven and bake until bubbly.  Top with shredded cheese and place back in oven until slightly melted.  Once you get one enchilada on your plate, top with sour cream and ENJOY!

Now, I didn't say these were the healthiest of recipes, but they sure are tasty!  You will have leftovers so if you don't want a lot of leftovers, make these for when you have company coming.  They will think that you slaved all day long, when you really didn't!

Frugal Friday!

A friend of mine posted on Facebook today that she wants to start saving money at all costs.  It put this little idea in my head to make Fridays "Frugal Friday".  So I immediately went to my Pinterest page which you can find here, and opened my Financial Organizing board and my Cleaning, Organizing and Decluttering board.  There's all kinds of tips that I've collected over the last year of doing one of my favorite things ever...PINNING!  I love finding and pinning all kinds of things that have to do with saving money, but that doesn't mean that I've implemented these tips in my life...YET!  I've only made one batch of laundry soap, but I've got plans to make this other stuff too.  I'll provide all the links to the original websites so the folks that worked so hard to make these things, get all the credit!

Homemade Laundry Detergent, there's all kinds.  I made the No-Grate recipe - you can find that recipe here.  One Good Thing by Jillee is an amazing blog!  She's got all kinds of tips on homemade cleaning supplies, tons of them actually!

Anyone that is a mom knows how important it is to keep everything germ free, but Clorox Anywhere Spray is soooo expensive!  Guess what I found?  A link to make homemade Clorox Anywhere Spray!  You can find that here.

I also think one of the best ways to help save is to make the things that you would use everyday, like body wash, shaving gel, shampoo, conditioner, and deodorant.  I found a bunch of recipes on Pinterest for all of that stuff too!  Wow!  It's amazing what you can find on there!  

Body Wash - this is the greatest thing ever!  You literally turn a $1 bar of soap into 48 ounces of body wash. You can't get much better than that!  This link comes to you from Discount Queens.  

Shaving Gel - seriously, I haven't used shaving gel since I had kids, but I'm so tired of wasting my hair conditioner to shave my legs.  So I set out to find a recipe for that too!  This one is from Ashley's Homemade Adventures.  I'm sure you could use any type of ingredients, even cheap stuff from the dollar store.

Shampoo and conditioner - Everything that I found was called "No-Poo".  It has no soap, so it doesn't bubble up, but apparently it really cleans your hair and scalp to make for extremely healthy hair!  Here is what found from Kale to the Queen.  

Deodorant - now I'm not real sure if this is something that i would actually try or not, but I've thought about it.  Frugal G33k made some very valid points as to why you should use homemade deodorant, the store bought stuff is riddled with aluminum, which is so not good for you!  You can find the link to her recipe here.  

In the process of writing this post, I decided to move over some pins to a new board called "Frugal Friday Blog Post Pins".  If y'all have any pins that you want to share, let me know and I can add you to the board and we can all just share away!  I would also love your feedback on this post too!  Any other tips, things you have tried or if you have recipes of your own - leave them in the comments!  This post was so fun! We'll have to do this every Friday!  

My kiddies...continued

So today I was going to give you guys a couple of recipes, but everybody changed their minds on what they wanted for dinner, so I'll save that for tomorrow.

Instead of food, I'll introduce you all to Bella, my littlest princess.  I think she's really starting to believe that she is a princess, because if you ask her what her name is, she proudly announces, "princess".  And let me tell you, if you tell her no, she gets really mad!

February 2010

Isabella Cady-Fay (I'll give you the rundown on her name in a minute) is the biggest spitfire our family has right now.  She's 3 going on 16!  She's amazing, and perfect, and beautiful!  Unlike Noah, she doesn't have an amazing story as to how she came to be.  She was born full term, everything completely normal, just like any other baby.  I, on the other hand, didn't think everything would be okay during my pregnancy.  I was freaking out until after the 29 week mark.  Each time I went to the doctor, she would tell me - "Hello! Remember, I'm the doctor - let me worry about it!  You just chill and grow a baby!"  So I was like - OK - let's grow a baby!  And all worry went out of my mind.

December 2011

On February 19, 2010 - my little Pickle came into our lives!  Isabella Cady-Fay was 7 pounds and 19 inches long.  COMPLETELY normal!  What the hell do i do with a normal baby?  You mean to tell me that she's not going to be stuck in her room for months at a time, attached to all kinds of wires?  She's going to have energy, and want to do things?  Now what?  I think it was one of the first times I felt like a "normal" family, whatever that is!

So i promised I would elaborate on her beautiful name.  We'll start with her middle names.  Cady is my maiden name - i always said that if I ever had a girl - her middle name would be Cady.  LOVE IT!  And that way, I still feel connected to my dad's side of the family that I grew up with.  Fay comes from Kevin's grandma.  She would have loved Bella.  Bella was the first girl on Kevin's Dad's side of the family in 30 some odd years, and she would have fallen in love with her!  OK - Isabella.  Isabella comes from, what else...Twilight.  I fell in love with the name as soon as i started reading the first book.  I also told myself that by the time she goes to kindergarten, there will be all kinds of "Bellas", "Alices", and "Rosalies".  So i came up with a plan, if anybody asks me where i got her name it would be - Queen Isabella of Spain.  Sounds good, right?  LOL!

November 2012

So that's my sweet princess.  A spitfire, a girly girl, a tomboy.  All of me wrapped up in a cute little ball. Here's to hoping that the spitfire is gone by the time we reach 13!  

So I hope that you enjoyed learning about my little family!  Tomorrow I'll be bringing you some recipes - cheap to make - but not cheap on taste!  YUMMO!  I can't wait!  Until tomorrow...

my kiddies!

So I would love to introduce you to our kids! First there is Noah, 8 years old, and full of energy, lots and lots of energy! 

 

Noah will be going into the 3rd grade this year.  Just about this time of year, right before school starts, I always start to remember, "the time".  The time when he was born.  The time I never thought would end. The time when he was born at 29 weeks, couldn't breathe on his own, eat on his own, do anything without the help of machines.  It was January 1, 2005.  I remember it like it was yesterday, it was hot, humid, and rainy...very odd for winter in Missouri.  He hadn't moved all day long, and normally he was kicking field goals all the time.  I had called my husband's Aunt Jeni, and she said "here's what the doctor's office is going to tell you.  Drink a can of Coke, and lay on your left side for an hour.  if nothing happens go to the hospital." Okay...so i drank a can of Coke...an hour later...still nothing!  I called my husband, and we went to the hospital.  They took us right back and told us that the doc will want an ultrasound stress test before any decisions are made.  So i was like ok, let's do this!  I'm sure most know what a stress test is, it's an ultrasound where they just sit there and watch the baby, and it has to do certain things during that time to show the tech that everything is okay.  Long story short...he didn't do anything that he was supposed to do.  Which come to find out, he was saving his energy, because he knew that there was something wrong.  About an hour or so later my doctor walks into the room and looks at me, my husband, and my husband's entire family, and says "I've never seen anything like this before.  I've called my old professor..."  (which p.s. is not something you really want to hear, but coming from her, for some reason it was oddly comforting) "...and he says we need to take him right away."  WHAT?!  You're going to cut me open, right now and take my baby? This is sooooo not how this was supposed to go down!  So while she got the OR ready, Kevin's Uncle Lance, laid his hands on us, and prayed.  He and the entire room prayed so hard, that by the time we were ready to go back, I wasn't even scared any more.  They took me back, and gave me a spinal block, such a weird feeling by the way.  Then all of a sudden, we had a baby!  He screamed, for what seemed like 5 minutes, but was actually, about 20 seconds, until he stopped breathing.  They took him away doing CPR.  That had to be the scariest thing ever, that we've been through.  To hear your baby cry, and then all of a sudden it just stops, and all the nurses and baby doctors run out of the room with your lifeless baby.

It was a day later before we were allowed to see him.  He was covered in wires, breathing tubes, feeding tubes and hooked up to all kinds of machines.  I cried, Kevin cried.  The wonderful nurses and doctors at Southeast Hospital took great care of us, and more importantly, Noah.  It was probably a week or so later before we were allowed to hold him.  That was the best day of our lives, and also the hardest.  I thought he was going to break, or that a wire would come off and something horrible would happen.  Nothing happened.  He grew, he learned how to eat on his own, he learned to breathe, with some help.  But he was growing like a weed!  That's all that mattered, he was growing enough that we were able to go home in 48 days.  He started at 2 lbs 13 oz and left the hospital at just under 5 lbs.

January 2005

The first time I saw a miracle was when our first born came home from the hospital.  The second was the day that he turned 6 months old, and the doctor took him off of oxygen.  Now he had been on oxygen all through a Missouri Spring.  A normal spring here is horrible thunderstorms, heavy winds, and worst of all power outages.  The funny thing about this one was, there weren't hardly any storms.  And stranger yet, no power outages.  If the power had gone out, we would have had to go to the hospital until the it came back on or he would have stopped breathing.  Guess when the power went out for like 5 hours?  The day that we came home from getting the oxygen off.  Coincidence?  I think not...it was by far a miracle.  It was just one of many times that God brought me to something, and then followed through by bringing not just me, but my son through it.  Something changed in me that day, something that made me stronger than I ever thought possible.  

November 2012

  

If God brings you to it...

I try to live my life by one saying in particular.  "If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it".  I guess at this point I'm just waiting for Him to bring me through it all.  Sometimes I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and other times, it's like I'm walking through a black as night hallway, with no end in sight.

I guess it all started in March of last year.  My husband, was laid off from his job.  The entire time his employer that he had been extremely loyal to for 15 years, fought his unemployment for 6 months. Somehow, we made it. I have no idea how we did it, i guess by the grace of God.  At that time I had a job...and that's all that it was, a J.O.B.  I was a housekeeper at a hotel, WOOHOO!  Great job!  All kidding aside, i really did like it.  For someone that HATES cleaning, I did really like it.  I liked how it kept me busy all day long, there was no down time what so ever.  In July, I got a call from a friend saying that she needed a manager for one of her payday loan offices.  I jumped at the chance!  I loved it!  I was helping people, my husband was working non stop out of town...which i secretly loved, what could be better?  :)  Then came November...my husband lost his very well paying job.  I really thought, oh my gosh, we are in huge trouble. How are we going to do this?  2 kids, and one job that doesn't really pay as well as what his did.  Somehow we made it...i still have no idea how though.  It really was perfect, I was working and he was staying at home with the kids.  I loved it, they loved it, and more importantly, he loved it!  We started working on opening his own business, his own hardwood flooring business.  Elite Wood Flooring.  The only thing is we are doing it without any money...kind of hard to do that sometimes.  Fast forward to today...I have now lost my job, and he is still unemployed.  YAY ME!  Now we have to figure out how to raise these 2 crazy kids on 2 unemployment "salaries".

So I'm guessing this is Him "bringing me to it".  So I'm going to take this "plan" of His, and run with it.  I'm going to stay at home with the kids, and the hubs too, I guess.  We'll, well I guess I really mean I, will get this house into shape, cleaning and organizing it.  Try to make it through the days, the long unending days, without yelling or screaming at anybody.  Make it through the mountains of laundry, poopy diapers, dogs and littles that pee EVERYWHERE, and the not listening, and the whining that goes on FOREVER, until He "brings me through it".  I am a fighter and a survivor, and I will get through this, maybe not unscathed, but stronger in the end.