Thankful Thursday: Control & Support

It's thankful Thursday time! We all have so much to be thankful for and we love to take this opportunity just to write down each and everything that comes to mind. Please take this time to share with us what you're thankful for as well. If you have a blog expressing your thankfulness, please share the link! Without further ado, here's what we're thankful for:

Mandi's List:

I'm thankful that God is in control of my life. For a control freak like me, it's a hard thing to relinquish control. But I know I am in good hands. There are some events in life that we will never have explanations for, but I seek comfort in the fact that there are reasons for everything, even when I am not privy to them.

I'm thankful for Mckenna. Monday night before bedtime, Mckenna just wanted to snuggle in her glider...a little longer than normal. As we sat there, her snuggled in my arms, I studied her face. I wondered to myself if I would remember the exact contours of her face at this stage years down the road. Would I remember the slight wrinkles under her eyes, the shape of her lips, the rosiness of her cheeks. I wondered why I never took the time to commit her face to memory intentionally. I listened to her breathing. Slow and calm. Relaxed. Safe. In hindsight, there was no better time to appreciate and cherish my little love than Monday night.

I'm thankful for Jelly Bellies. No explanation needed! Ha!

Ronnie's List:

I'm thankful for a supportive wife. Mandi makes my CF and non-CF life very easy. She is quick to offer a helping hand with anything I need and completely understands when my health must take precedent over something else going on in our life. I can't imagine being with a partner that didn't understand that we must do what we have to do in order to put our family in the best position to succeed. Sure makes things a lot easier!!

I'm thankful for support. The outpouring of letters, notes, emails, phone calls etc has been so humbling since our little hiccup in the IVF process last week. We of course never wanted or expected to have a miscarriage, but being surrounded by love and support certainly makes it a little more bearable.

I'm thankful for apps. It still amazes how many apps are available for download that can make our lives easier. Mandi just started using one that helps track her food intake and exercise, and I must admit, it's pretty sweet. So sweet in fact that she convinced me to give it a try :) 

So, what are you thankful for today?

The Sniffles and Sneezes

She's done it again!

Looks like I managed to catch another little bug that my own personal germ factory was able to pass onto me. In fact, I wasn't the only one in the house to get it, but I'm sure the biggest weeny about it ;)

It all started on Friday with a sore throat and ear ache after a 2.5 hour marathon with the folks at Cox Communications over someone dropping the ball and getting our service turned off. When I started to feel the symptoms, I figured they were just part of the stress and annoyance that Cox had put me through and hoped I would be better by morning. It got a little worse over night and I woke up with a fuller head, sorer throat and achier body (I'm surprised spell check didn't come up for any of those words).

It was not ideal that Saturday was moving day for my brother.

My mom, brothers Grant and Andrew, and I spent most of the day packing up his old apartment and getting him moved over to a new house that he is renting a room at. Fortunately for us, he didn't have a whole lot of stuff, but his apartment was on the second floor and we had to park the trucks about a half football field away. Moving him out was definitely more difficult than moving him in. I lived on vitamin C drinks, throat lozenges and tylenol that day. We got through it just fine and Andrew has quite the set-up at his new place!

Needless to say, I was dead asleep by about 8:15pm on Saturday night. That may be the earliest I've gone to bed since I was about 7.

Sunday and Monday were much of the same in terms of symptoms. Sore throat. Full head. Achy ears, etc. They were both fantastic days though! Sunday was all about family and church. Monday I traveled down to U of A College of Medicine a gave a talk about my approach to pharmaceutical health care vs that of a provider. It went well and I think I only had to blow my nose one time :) Bedtime was much of the same (down by 830 each night) and I think that has helped the most on my road to recovery.

Today, Tuesday, has been the best day so far and I'm looking forward to being symptom free in a couple of days!! One can hope right?

I just figure I'm building up tolerance before we bring germ factory number two into the picture :)

Last Week Is Over

Phew. Last week is over. I suspected once the week was over I'd be feeling better, and sure enough, I was right. Last week was a bit rough, but we made it through the week and are now just trucking along. There are still moments I think to myself (and sometimes say out loud), "It totally sucks we aren't still pregnant." And then I am done my pity party and move on. We already have a calendar of our next cycle, so I am turning my thoughts and energy to that. I have a few IVF and early pregnancy (AKA Progesterone injection) pounds I'd like to shed before our next transfer, so I am also choosing to pour my energy into workouts and healthy meals. I don't know about others, but for me, exercise is my outlet. It's where I do good thinking. It's what rebalances my mind. It's what makes me feel a serious sense of accomplishment during my day (that sounds a bit pathetic when I actually say it, but oh well, there it is). So my workouts are working double duty - getting my body back into shape after taking it easier for 1.5 months and helping my mind reset itself.

With all that said, we had an AWESOME weekend. Ronnie's mom and brother (Grant) were up this weekend helping his other brother (Andrew) move from one house to another, so we got to spend a lot of time with them. It is always nice to have them around for the weekend. Mckenna is always SO happy to have "Ma ma" here (her version of grandma). She got to play with grandma all weekend long and loved it. Because the weekend was "work" focused, trying to get Andrew moved, we didn't do anything too awesome or exciting, but just having them around to hang out throughout the weekend was really, really nice.

All weekend I couldn't help but think about how blessed we are. We have such a wonderful family on both sides, we were able to be outside a lot in beautiful spring weather, we got to enjoy a nice lunch out on Saturday afternoon, Mckenna and I spent hours singing and "dancing" to ring a round the rosy, Ronnie, Mckenna and I got to take a couple early morning walks this weekend while sipping on Starbucks. All in all, I felt so blessed this weekend. And I'm glad I actually took the time to choose to see all our many blessings.

When less-than-ideal things happen in life, I find it's easy to let them eclipse the other many blessings I have. So this week I made it a point to think about all the blessings that surround us. We have a freakin' awesome life and this bump in the road will be just that in a few years. I refuse to let it eclipse our lives in the short term, waiting until time and circumstance change in a way that brings life back into focus. I am choosing to focus on this as just a little hiccup in our journey and that God has a different and BETTER plan for our lives. I am choosing to focus on and cherish all the many blessings we had before and after last Tuesday. Our life is just as awesome and we are just as blessed, we are just on a different journey than we thought before last Tuesday!