Counting down

As I have said, blogging is at the very bottom of my to do list, and I've been fine with that. But I have a few minutes so I thought I would do a quick catch-up.

We are weeks away from the wedding. Sometimes it's hard to believe it's really happening, but most of the time I'm just ready for it to be here! Everything has come together really well. It's hard to do all of this long distance, but my mom has been great and having one contact for most things helps a lot.

I continue to be humbled as the replies come in for the guest list. I'm stunned by the people willing to travel for my wedding. It is truly going to be a party full of people from every stage of my life. What a bonus to getting to marry my best friend.

J has been working hard on the bedroom, and I think we will be able to paint this weekend. We aren't counting on everything being done when I move my stuff the weekend before the wedding. But it should be close when we get back from the honeymoon (in Maine!).

I'm wrapping up my second grad school class. I'm taking a break from class this summer and will go back full time in August. I will keep some responsibilities in the newsroom as part of my assistantship that will pay for school. I can't say that there will be balance when school is my full-time focus, but I'm hoping it's a little easier than teaching, working and being a student. And this summer will be a nice break from the teaching and being a student part.

Just counting the days now...

A gift from the past

I wrote this a while ago, but never got back to adding photos and publishing it, so here it is a month later:

About two months after J and I met, he moved into the house he built. As he was packing, he found an old Missourian newspaper from the moon landing in 1969, as well as a family history and journal written by his grandmother. (One of his family members had typed up the family history and journal entries and distributed them to the family.)

He brought both the newspaper and the history/journal over for me to see. I don't know if it was because he knew I would love reading his family's history or that he loved his grandmother so much he wanted to share this piece of her with me, but it was a privilege to get to read it.

J's mom is the youngest of eight by 10 years. Even though she is from such a big family, she was practically raised as an only child and stayed very close to her mother. By the time J and his brother were born, the other grandkids were practically grown, and his grandmother savored the time with J and his brother. And he enjoyed time with her as well.

In the journal, she wrote about the house her kids built for her. Her first night in the house was Thanksgiving night, and J didn't want her stay by herself for the first night so he spent the night with her. It became a tradition for him to spend Thanksgiving night with her, and he continued to do so into his teens.

J was also the designated mower for her yard, and she was always trying to get him to wear this yellow hat that belonged to his grandfather. J rarely wears it, but he keeps that hat around.

His grandmother died 10 years ago this month. Between the journal and the stories from J, I have gotten a small glimpse of the wonderful woman she was and the impact she had on J's life.

Fast forward to a weekend in April. We were blessed with two wedding showers here in Missouri. J's family had one for us, and then there was one at our church. My parents, sister, niece and nephew made the trek from Tennessee and South Carolina, and it was wonderful to have them there to celebrate with us as well.

These two matching kiddos were good party-goers,
and MM is an expert bow collector at showers.

At the family shower, we were given some really special gifts, including this gorgeous stained glass lamp made by J's uncle.

What caught us by surprise was the role J's grandmother played in one of the gifts. She had made embroidered quilt squares before she died and gave them to J's aunt and instructed her to turn them into a quilt to give to J when he got married. J's aunt followed through and gave us a beautiful quilt with those squares in it. There was a note with the quilt providing that background. I could barely hold it together when I read the letter out loud, and J was as emotional as I've ever seen him. He was choked up all the way home.

To top it off, J's dad, a carpenter, made a gorgeous quilt rack with a cross in the middle for us to display the quilt on.

Hanging up in J's (soon to be our) house. And look, the handrail is up!

Without J telling me stories and sharing her journal with me, I would not have grasped the importance of this gift. But I know J wishes I could have met her, so to have her as part of the celebration meant the world to him. And I am still blown away at the way the family carried through this wish from J's grandmother.

I believe his grandmother and mine will be celebrating together in heaven on June 1 when we say our vows.

What does healing look like? Part 2

In part 1, I shared my history of fibromyalgia. Here's why I started writing about it.

A part of me wondered — was I using the medicine as a crutch? Had God healed me but I was refusing to trust Him to find out? Did I really need that pill every night?

After I got engaged, those questions loomed larger in my mind, and I realized the next few months are the last that I will sleep in a bed by myself. If I was going to try going without the medicine, the time to do it was now.

I talked with my doctor here in Missouri about it at the end of January. She gave me some smaller doses of the medicine so I could begin to taper off. After putting it off for a couple of weeks, I went to half my dosage — from 50 mgs to 25 mgs. It turned out that the week I went down on the dosage, we got the first of two snowstorms. So life was stressful, and I was working a lot. But I told myself there was never a good week to do it and powered through.

But it was obvious from the beginning that the lower dosage wasn't going to cut it. The pain started to come back almost immediately, and I found myself in a fog from the fatigue where I couldn't even complete sentences.

So I started researching natural ways to get my body into a deep sleep. I powered everything off hours before bed and banned my iPhone from my room. I took warm baths with epsom salts and drank a nighttime tea. I read relaxing books before bed (note: Gone Girl is not a relaxing thing to read before bed!). I went to bed earlier than usual, and I didn't give up on exercising.

Even though I closed my eyes and slept for eight hours a night, I woke up feeling just as tired as I did the night before. The fog of fatigue was so heavy I forgot to pay bills and struggled to get through the day. The pain returned in my back and my neck. I pulled out the heating pad and took as much as Advil as I'm allowed to.

J was one of the few people that knew I was trying this, and he was so patient. Even though he knew about my illness, he had never seen me like this — in pain and so exhausted. He was praying for me and doing whatever he could to help — a lot of times that meant just leaving me alone. I know it can be hard to be so helpless as you watch someone else struggle, and I know it was hard for him not to be able to "fix" or "heal" me. But he stuck by me, and it showed me that he would not be deterred by this sickness. He loves and accepts all of me.

Anyway, as the days went by, I knew that my body needed that medication as much now as it did 14 years ago. After two weeks at the lower dosage, I went back to the original dosage because I knew the pain was reaching a point that I might not be able to recover from without prescribed pain medication. Three nights of good sleep later, the pain faded and the fog of fatigue lifted. J noted that I seemed like myself again.

It proved to me that the sleep disorder I have is real, and my healing comes through 21st century medicine.

But it still felt like I had failed or even that God had failed me, and I had to remind myself of the truths God showed me when I was first sick. It doesn't mean that God isn't present or doesn't care about my physical ailments or hasn't heard my prayers for healing. I believe that this illness is a part of my life for a reason even if I can't see why. But there are still unanswered questions for me as I move into this next stage of my life. I am obviously following up with doctors about those questions and will in the years to come. And I won't ever give up on praying for complete healing.

I also have to admit that I envisioned writing a completely different blog post. I had hoped to write about how I was able to stop taking the medicine and felt better than ever. I almost didn't write this one at all, but I think I probably needed to write this one more than if it had all been sunshine and daisies.

What does healing look like? Part 1

So here's something I've never blogged about: I have fibromyalgia. I was diagnosed 14 years ago this month (to help with the math, I was 15).

You've probably seen commercials for fibromyalgia and might be somewhat familiar with it. But here's the quick version of how it impacted me: For six months before my diagnosis, I had unexplained fatigue and back pain. In the weeks before I was diagnosed, I was also suffering from neck pain. In those six months, we saw a lot of doctors and had what seemed like every test in the book. I did physical therapy, took pain medication, slept like it was my job, but nothing solved the issue. I continue to be grateful to my parents for always believing that my pain was real and never giving up on finding an answer. They were the ones that actually learned about fibromyalgia through a friend and got me in to see the best rheumatologist in town. When I saw the rheumatologist, he checked 17 pressure points on my body, I reacted in pain to 15 of them (pain in 11 is typically enough for a diagnosis).

What was happening was that I was not going into a deep enough sleep to heal my muscles. I was put on a small dosage of antidepressants to resolve the sleep disorder, and the doctor helped me manage my pain with cortisone shots and pain medication. But once I started the antidepressants and improved my sleep habits (no naps, no caffeine, regular exercise, etc.), I got better. And it has been many years since I have had any issues or pain that wasn't resolved with a good night's sleep and Advil.

At the time I was diagnosed, I was devastated by the idea of having a chronic illness at 15. During the time I was sick before the diagnosis, I prayed for healing. I prayed for miraculous healing and for healing through an answer from a doctor. But a chronic illness was not the answer I expected.

Because of the pain I was in the day I was diagnosed, it seemed that I would live in pain for the rest of my life. I couldn't see that six months down the road, I would be able to function as a normal teenager and not wake up in pain every day. I couldn't see that I would go to college, have roommates, study abroad, spend the night in airports, work second shift jobs and completely forget about the pain.

I do remember my doctor giving me some glimmer of hope when he mentioned that I could grow out of it, that by my early 20s I could be free of it. But when my early 20s came and my doctor suggested coming off my medicine, I put him off. My life was busy and full, and I wasn't willing to change what had been working for so long. And then I got a real job and new insurance, and he wasn't my doctor anymore. After that I saw family practitioners that just kept prescribing what was working for me.

But a part of me wondered — was I using the medicine as a crutch? Had God healed me but I was refusing to trust Him to find out? Did I really need that pill every night?

In part 2, I will share what happened when I tried to answer those questions.

Snow, part 2

So I have always wanted to marry a guy that drove a truck. It wasn't a dealbreaker criteria, nor was it a reason to be with somebody. But it is icing on the cake that J drives an F250. Especially when 11 inches of snow is dumped on our town.

I have known from the beginning that J was a hard worker and does whatever he can to help others. He didn't have anything to prove to me, but I was still in awe at all of his hard work dealing with the snow during the last three days.

J picked up a co-worker and me from the newsroom on Thursday afternoon after we were surprised by the amount of snow that arrived. After dropping my co-worker off, we stopped in Walmart for food supplies and a shovel. The roads got pretty terrible when we got close to my house, and J had to circle back. Even in his F250, we got stuck for a minute on a hill — that's how bad things were.

We finally made it back to a street close to my house, and he pulled in to park on the side of the street. He then proceeded to shovel out a spot behind his truck in an attempt to protect himself from getting plowed in. But when he went to reverse into the spot, he kept sliding forward and into the curb. So he just kept shoveling.

After more than hour of this, a neighbor offered to pull him out. At that point I went inside to cook a pizza and warm up. It was another 45 minutes before J came in. I asked him what took so long, and he said he stayed out there to help shovel the neighbor's driveway. Of course he did.

Friday morning he drove me to work, and then he picked me up that afternoon and took me home before going back to work.

On Saturday morning, I woke up to find him shoveling my really long driveway. It took him almost four hours. He did all of this even though my street hadn't been cleared and my car was still in a parking garage at school.

I can't believe he went to all of that trouble for not just me, but a neighbor and a co-worker.

Here's a tip: If a guy shovels three inches of snow after one date, it means he's OK with being on the hook for a lot more snow than that in the future. Although I'm sure J's relieved that he'll only be responsible for one driveway next winter.

Here's hoping that we don't get another six inches of snow this week!

Snow, part 1

Well, it has been a crazy few days, and there's nothing like a big snowstorm to make me love my job more.

On Wednesday, forecasters were predicting we would get 3 to 6 inches of snow on Thursday morning. As the early morning person, I decided to go ahead and go into work before my 6:30 a.m. shift started. When I left my house, there was not a flake of snow. By 9 a.m., it was coming down fast and complete with thunder.

Since the snow started after most people got to work, many ended up stranded as they tried to get home at midday when they realized it got bad. The interstate was shut down, there were cars and even buses stranded everywhere and the university ended up closing (a very rare event). By 3 p.m. we had 11 inches of snow — a much bigger deal than 3 to 6 inches.

It was the kind of day journalists live for. I was so busy managing our website and social media accounts, the first time I got up was to go to the bathroom at 12:30 p.m. (I did have a stash of food to sustain me.)

I was doing everything I could to inform our readers and share any information I had. I was tracking the MoDOT traveler map and sharing screenshots of interstate cameras. I was tracking everything people said about the snow using a hashtag. And I was trying to translate the information I was sharing with our audience on social media with those using our website. I was juggling so many things and easily had 20 tabs open on my browser, but those are the situations where I thrive.

Meanwhile, our outreach team was collecting people's pictures shared on social media in an easy-to-view format. This was our first experiment with the tool, and it turned out awesome. The team also had a Google map going that showed road conditions based on submissions from our readers and staff. All this stuff on our site was so popular, the site actually went down about 1 p.m. on Thursday. The tech guy got it up and running quickly, but it was a testament to how many people wanted the information we were providing.

I did make an escape about 4:30 p.m. to come home and get some rest before I went back bright and early Friday morning. On Friday, I did much of the same. What was cool was that people realized we were a good resource for information. People on Twitter started asking what we knew about road conditions at various intersections and roads around town. Using our Google map, MoDOT and anecdotal information from reporters and Twitter, I responded to each question. And that was my favorite part of the day. I loved that "direct" interaction with people and knowing that people turned to us for information.

This was one of those adrenaline-rush events that even though it is fun for me in my job is a pretty serious situation. Fortunately, there were hardly any accidents, and we didn't hear of any fatalities. But there were a lot of people stranded or students who had a long walk home.

But it was a reminder that the newsroom is exactly where I want to be during an event like this and that's what was missing in my time in Virginia. The bonus of this newsroom is that we got to do all of this stuff and teach our students how to do it at the same time. The downside, of course, is that two long days of hard work doesn't let me me off the hook for teaching class Monday morning. I'll be spending some time preparing for that on Sunday!

A year ago

I've been a pretty terrible blogger lately. It's at the bottom of my to do list right now, and I'm OK with that but I thought today was worth marking.

A year ago, J and I went on our first date. We had talked on the phone once, but it was basically a blind date. We met for dinner at Macaroni Grill, and it was one of those first dates where we never ran out of things to talk about. I didn't know then that a year later we'd be engaged, but I did leave that date looking forward to another one. And I'm so glad there were more dates after that.