A 2017 Plan

            I realize this is coming a little late, but it is because I had other things I wanted to talk about before discussing my resolution plans. To be honest, these aren’t really New Year’s resolution plans. My husband and I sat down and discussed what we had discussed last year. We decided what worked and what didn’t work.

            We discussed how over the year some of our ideas, like a date night, turned into something new, like marriage counseling. This was a welcomed change. We are not having marriage trouble, but marriage is hard and we want ours to last. We discussed what didn’t work. He wanted to work on making YouTube videos but other things came up that were more important to him. Family days failed because I needed more time to study. Of course, at the beginning of last year we had not planned on me going to school. We had not considered that I would receive a publishing contract. These change time priorities. However, we still didn’t want to lose family time. We needed to find a way to make that a priority for 2017.

            We sat down and considered what our desires were and which ones we could make a priority for the New Year. The list is as follows:

• ·         Spiritual Devotion (family, personal, couple)
• ·         Homework with J1
• ·         Minimalize our house
• ·         Personal time for my husband
• ·         Personal for me
• ·         A summer trip to visit his parents
• ·         Reunion trip to visit my family
• ·         Watch Cars 3 in the theater
• ·         Weekend Getaway

            Some of these are already behind due to J3 having to visit the hospital again. Fortunately, when we discussed these plans we were not forceful that it had to be done every day. We knew things would come up that we could not control.

            We created a schedule, but again, it was not written in stone and if it was it included a side note that things would come up and that would be fine. Our weekly schedule, at least through the fall semester, is as follows:

·         Sunday: Family days

-        Games, movies, outdoors

-        Family devotionals that included the kids

·         Monday:

-        In house homework for me

-        I help J1 with homework

·         Tuesday:

-        Out of the house writing

-        Hubby helps J1 with homework

·         Wednesday:

-        In house homework for me

-        I help J1 with homework

·         Thursday:

-        Out of the house writing

-        Hubby helps J1 with homework

·         Friday:

-        First Friday of the month is Marriage Counseling

-        Forth Friday is a Skype Critique (Writing/Editing)

·         Saturday:

-        Second Saturday is Skype Critique (Writing/Editing)

-        Homework days for me

            Looking at the goals from 2016 and making an honest assessment of them allowed us to judge what we were proud of or disappointed by. We discussed the obstacles that had appeared over the year that forced a change to our original plans. We chose the things that we wanted to accomplish this year, even simple things like seeing a movie at the theater. Now, we have a new plan for this year. Can’t wait to see how we feel about it in 2018.

Palliative Care: The Hospital Again

J3, my youngest, has been turning purple and breathing heavily. His pulse/ox has dropped about ten points. We took him in to see the cardiologist and my fears were realized. Although he is a year younger than we originally discussed, it was time to process with the third round of surgeries. Did we know it was coming? Yes. Were we ready for it? No. Do I wish we could postpone it until this summer? Yes. Do I think we will be able to? No.

            I start school again in a little over three weeks. My older two boys go back to school in a few days. We are terrified. Why we? Because my husband is by my side. This time I am determined to remember this. At the mere mention of returning to the hospital I break down into tears. Why? Because every time we go in with him, there is a chance that we will not walk out with him.

            His first surgery is on Jan. 5^th. It is a heart catheterization, which will tell us exactly how things are going and determine how soon we need to do surgery. Personally, I would prefer now. I would chose to get it over with rather than have it hanging over our heads and the semester. I might miss a week or so of school but it is better than missing during midterms or finals.

            I realize that this sounds selfish, but this disrupts the lives of my other two boys as well who have to live without their parents, but at the same time continue their educations like nothing is wrong. Of course, that is asking too much. I understand that they will act out and they will have earned that right to voice their disapproval with the situation they have zero control over. This disrupts my mother’s life who will drop everything so that she can come down here to care for the children in my absence. The life of my father will change when he can no longer come home to his wife. And it disrupts my husband’s life who has to balance work and the hospital, being by my side as well as our son, but also needing to collect a wage to feed and house everyone.

            We are not ready for this, but we will be packed for more than just a day trip if necessary.

            I wrote that to be released on Jan. 4^th, but I got side tracked by the sheer number of things that needed to be dealt with. I have zero plans to hash out all the details. However, the end product … was a continuation of where we already are.

            The heart cath went great. J3 is doing better than we expected. They are supposed to discuss his case either today or next Monday and schedule his Fontan procedure. Are we nervous? Of course. But once again I have reached the peace that comes with “God’s will be done”. I hope I get a long life with my son and I will love to give all the happy go lucky news, but the facts are:

1)      J3s heart is unbalanced. One side works twice as hard as the other. It will give out and he will need a heart transplant. The doctors told us this at the start of everything. If we are lucky we will get ten to twenty years before this happens.

2)      The Fontan will fail. This we did not know. There are some indicators to watch for but even the doctors do not know why or when it will fail. It could fail within the next six months or it could fail twenty years from now.

3)      We are blessed to have him in our lives and while he is fighting we will fight with him. We will give him the best life we can and as his is a very happy boy I can only assume we are succeeding.

This is yet another aspect of our lives. I am preparing for school. The older two boys will continue school. My husband continues to work. And for those moments when we can come together and etch out meaningful time together we do.

2016 was a Success

I am beginning to notice a pattern. I get really excited about the New Year and all the changes I plan to make and I start off strong and then sometime around mid to end March I disappear. I have done that the last two years. I hope not to do that again this year. Last year, my husband and I sought out changes, some of them worked, some of them didn’t. This year we are tweaking the plan and hope for some improvements. I will post about this more in a later blog. However, the changes we did make have been incredible. I cast the net wide and captured more than I could have dreamed.

            I was accepted into college and managed to balance a marriage, children, writing, and school. It was not easy. We needed help from friends and family in order to make it work. But the first semester was successful. Turns out that I will only need two years to finish a B.A. in English instead of the three I feared.

            I got a publishing contract. This is something that I have worked on for over five years now. I owe a lot to Nanowrimo, who I highly support, my critique group, which I recommend for anyone hoping to become a published writer, and my mother, who edits my atrocious grammar. There is no release date yet, but I hope to be starting a pre-promotion campaign soon.

            I just celebrated my six year anniversary to an amazing man, who has supported me through all the insanity and I can only hope it will pay off for him in the end. My boys are now, five and a half, five, and two and a half. They are growing by leaps and bounds and never fail to surprise me daily.

            Also, and this idea took a very long time to come around to, I am already planning to attend seminary for my master’s degree. This summer I was attending a Synod meeting through my church and through a series of coincidences ended up speaking to the keynote speaker for nearly half an hour before she was called away. I explained to her what was going on in my life, what was important to me, and how inspirational I found her message to be. She gave me encouragement to press ahead. A couple of months later, I spoke to another woman, asked her how she knew God had called her to her work, told her I was considering seminary. After speaking to her, again I was encouraged to continue on my path.

            There is still a lot of work ahead of me. I have gone from being a stay-at-home mother to a schedule that I wouldn’t wish any anyone and I am beyond excited.

            As always, stay with me as I continue on my journey and maybe my journey will encourage you.