I got busy this weekend and wasn't able to finish the Mommas helping Mommas series...we had Kris, then we had Carla (whose husband had surgery today and came through well!!) and then we had Eri. All of these mommas appreciate any and all help/support you can give them.
Today I'm spotlighting Quinn who is raising money for her 5K/10K walk/run she is doing for the Minnesota Ovarian Cancer Alliance. It appears that she has already done the race BUT donations are still appreciated. Quinn's entry about Ovarian Cancer and why she is doing fundraisers for this organization are in the link. It's also got some great info on Ovarian cancer and the signs and symptoms of it.
As always, if you can help support these mommas, that's fantastic, and if not just keep them in your thoughts :)
Monday, April 29, 2013
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Mommas helping mommas, day 3 Eri
Tonight's mommas helping mommas post is in honor of my dear dear friend Eri; she is truly one of the people in my life that I love most. I am fairly certain we are sisters born to different parents. The last year has been really rough on Eri; she went through a really nasty divorce and is now a single parent raising her two boys with very limited help from anyone except those very close to her. Eri has been battling health issues and recently had a procedure that put her in bed for a few days without any way to get up and take care of the kiddos or cook meals or any basic day to day stuff. Thankfully she had a friend who could help but lord knows, everyone could use a helping hand once in a while.
Eri is one of those people who would literally give you the shirt off her back if she knew you needed it and now it's time to pay her back in kind.
I've set up a meal train fund for her on line to give her a hand with meals for the boys and herself and I'm going to link you to that...but more than that, Eri needs encouragement. It's hard working raising two boys by yourself on a very limited budget and when you're battling health issues of your own...so I'm asking that if you can help with the meal train, please do BUT if you can't (which is OK, I promise) maybe you can drop by her blog Ho Hum Home and leave her a comment encouraging her. As for the meal train, most people are not going to be able to actually drop off a meal BUT a gift card to a local restaurant would be great or a visa gift card for whatever she needs would also be fantastic.
Eri's meal train Feel free to contact me via email if you need a pay pal address or way to send her a gift card at chrissiwit@gmail.com
and as always...a picture :)
Eri is one of those people who would literally give you the shirt off her back if she knew you needed it and now it's time to pay her back in kind.
I've set up a meal train fund for her on line to give her a hand with meals for the boys and herself and I'm going to link you to that...but more than that, Eri needs encouragement. It's hard working raising two boys by yourself on a very limited budget and when you're battling health issues of your own...so I'm asking that if you can help with the meal train, please do BUT if you can't (which is OK, I promise) maybe you can drop by her blog Ho Hum Home and leave her a comment encouraging her. As for the meal train, most people are not going to be able to actually drop off a meal BUT a gift card to a local restaurant would be great or a visa gift card for whatever she needs would also be fantastic.
Eri's meal train Feel free to contact me via email if you need a pay pal address or way to send her a gift card at chrissiwit@gmail.com
and as always...a picture :)
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Mommas helping mommas, day 2: Carla
Today is day two of mommas helping mommas week and today I'd like to tell you about my friend Carla.
Carla and I have known each other for many years, we met online and met in person and fast forward to all these years later and she is someone I see as family :) Geo and I were both in her wedding a few years ago and and we've gone through a lot together. Carla has five amazing kiddos, Perrin is her youngest and was born with a host of special needs...though you wouldn't know that now to see him in action. Last weekend I got the chance to go visit them and Perrin walked by me for the first time...and I cried as if it were my own kiddo walking for the first time (truth be told P is a lot like Gabe and I hope he continues to make all of us cry the way Gabe has!)
Carla's lovely momma, Marsha passed away unexpectedly last weekend. Marsha was a lovely lady; I'd met her a handful of times and she was kind and funny and loved Carla and her grandbabies more than anything else; it was evident she felt that way just by watching her watch Carla or the kids. She was one proud Momma watching Carla marry her very own hunky hubby Louie a few years back.
Carla, as I said, has five kiddos and she is a stay at home momma to them. Louie is a hard worker and provides for them the best he can (and Carla helps by cooking awesome meals from scratch and crafting and all sorts of other good stuff) however the costs that came along with the funeral were too much for them to afford, so they're taking donations toward funeral expenses. Any amount you could donate would be fantastic...even a dollar would make a difference especially since Louie is about to have spinal surgery and will be off of work for a while. As before, if you can't help, don't sweat it, but please keep them in your thoughts.
In Memory of Marsha
and of course, since everyone loves a picture...
In Memory of Marsha
Carla and I have known each other for many years, we met online and met in person and fast forward to all these years later and she is someone I see as family :) Geo and I were both in her wedding a few years ago and and we've gone through a lot together. Carla has five amazing kiddos, Perrin is her youngest and was born with a host of special needs...though you wouldn't know that now to see him in action. Last weekend I got the chance to go visit them and Perrin walked by me for the first time...and I cried as if it were my own kiddo walking for the first time (truth be told P is a lot like Gabe and I hope he continues to make all of us cry the way Gabe has!)
Carla's lovely momma, Marsha passed away unexpectedly last weekend. Marsha was a lovely lady; I'd met her a handful of times and she was kind and funny and loved Carla and her grandbabies more than anything else; it was evident she felt that way just by watching her watch Carla or the kids. She was one proud Momma watching Carla marry her very own hunky hubby Louie a few years back.
Carla, as I said, has five kiddos and she is a stay at home momma to them. Louie is a hard worker and provides for them the best he can (and Carla helps by cooking awesome meals from scratch and crafting and all sorts of other good stuff) however the costs that came along with the funeral were too much for them to afford, so they're taking donations toward funeral expenses. Any amount you could donate would be fantastic...even a dollar would make a difference especially since Louie is about to have spinal surgery and will be off of work for a while. As before, if you can't help, don't sweat it, but please keep them in your thoughts.
In Memory of Marsha
and of course, since everyone loves a picture...
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Mommas helping Mommas Week Day 1
(this week instead of cute anecdotes about the kiddos and pets I am going to be doing a post a day that will introduce you to someone who needs some help; we've got a six different women in need and I'd like to see what we can do to help them. If you are unable to help, perhaps you can share the blog link and maybe someone else can help. thank you in advance!)
My friend Kris is all sorts of amazing; she has five gorgeous daughters, is married to a sweetheart of a man who has taken on her four girls as his own, deals with chronic pain and yet manages to work still, and is a very involved parent. She's the first to help someone out whenever she can and when she can't help, she tries to find someone who can. Kris is now in the position of needing some help. In her words:
My ex husband and I have four kids together. He put us through years of financial hardship, including evictions. We have been divorced for four years now. I'm happily married to the man of my dreams now and we have one child together. I work retail, as many hours as I can, and my husband works two jobs. We are working together to dig me out of the hole my ex husband left me in. The ex is still trying to keep interrupting my life and my attempts at bettering myself and fixing my credit, and is ignoring key aspects of our divorce decree in the interest of his own financial gain. I have the kids more than 80% of the time. My husband and I pay co-payments, costs for school trips, for extracurricular activties for the kids, and now we even have drivers ed coming up (which he's also refused to help pay for). I have multiple medical conditions but still work as often as I can for my family. We cannot pay out-of-pocket for an attorney retainer, which is why I have created this page. A friend of mine pointed me to this site trying to help. I just need to fight for what is right.
She is still looking for help with lawyers fees so if you're so inclined perhaps you could pop on over to her page and donate a bit. Kris's page
Maybe you can't help her financially (that's OKAY really, it is!) but maybe you know a lawyer who takes on pro bono cases in the South West part of Michigan, maybe you ARE a lawyer and want to help a family who needs some help, maybe you've been through this situation and can offer some advice. I have such creative and amazing readers on my blog that I'm sure we can give Kris and her family some help, right??
What blog post is complete without an adorable photo? Here we have Kris and her youngest :D
One more time...Kris's page
My friend Kris is all sorts of amazing; she has five gorgeous daughters, is married to a sweetheart of a man who has taken on her four girls as his own, deals with chronic pain and yet manages to work still, and is a very involved parent. She's the first to help someone out whenever she can and when she can't help, she tries to find someone who can. Kris is now in the position of needing some help. In her words:
My ex husband and I have four kids together. He put us through years of financial hardship, including evictions. We have been divorced for four years now. I'm happily married to the man of my dreams now and we have one child together. I work retail, as many hours as I can, and my husband works two jobs. We are working together to dig me out of the hole my ex husband left me in. The ex is still trying to keep interrupting my life and my attempts at bettering myself and fixing my credit, and is ignoring key aspects of our divorce decree in the interest of his own financial gain. I have the kids more than 80% of the time. My husband and I pay co-payments, costs for school trips, for extracurricular activties for the kids, and now we even have drivers ed coming up (which he's also refused to help pay for). I have multiple medical conditions but still work as often as I can for my family. We cannot pay out-of-pocket for an attorney retainer, which is why I have created this page. A friend of mine pointed me to this site trying to help. I just need to fight for what is right.
She is still looking for help with lawyers fees so if you're so inclined perhaps you could pop on over to her page and donate a bit. Kris's page
Maybe you can't help her financially (that's OKAY really, it is!) but maybe you know a lawyer who takes on pro bono cases in the South West part of Michigan, maybe you ARE a lawyer and want to help a family who needs some help, maybe you've been through this situation and can offer some advice. I have such creative and amazing readers on my blog that I'm sure we can give Kris and her family some help, right??
What blog post is complete without an adorable photo? Here we have Kris and her youngest :D
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
A Long Winded Update, per usual
The last month or so has been incredibly busy. For one, I went back to work. Somehow I managed to find a job at a little company a few miles from here that only needs me to work three hours a day and is incredibly flexible if I am not able to come in. You always hear of places saying that family comes first but rarely do you find a place where that's actually true. I've found a place where that's actually true and it's, in a word, amazing. I'm a receptionist/problem solver/do whatever is needed person for the company and quite frankly, it's a very fun job. Just enough hours a day to get out of the house, a little bit of extra spending money, and I really enjoy the people I work with as well as our customers.
It has been quite an adjustment for the kiddos even though I am gone while they are at school. They get off the bus at 2:30 and I am generally home by 3:10-and Geo, of course, is home when they get home. They just aren't used to mom being gone at ALL. To be honest, I'm still not used to be gone in the afternoons yet. Sometimes I wonder if it was the right decision to go back to work and then I quickly knock those thoughts from my head and say of course it was, I love it!
Secondly my health has been kind of out of whack the last few months. I've made no secret about my struggle to lose weight over the last year or so. Last week I had a full panel of blood work done by my doctor to see how my cholesterol levels, hormone levels, etc were doing and the doc finally thinks he's found the root of my problem. I'm losing my hair, cranky and/or weepy constantly, can't lose weight, have awful menstrual cycles, etc. Turns out the doc thinks I have PCOS which is poly cystic ovarian sydrome( read about it here) He started me on a med to try and help the cysts go down and help with the other symptoms I'm having. The good news is that I've already started to lose weight AND my blood sugar levels are going down.
Sunday night was the start of a three day adventure for me, health wise. Sunday night I felt a pop on ovary. I didn't think too much of it as I have cysts burst once a month or so; I took a pain pill and went to sleep only to wake up Monday morning feeling even worse than I thought possible (I would like to note that my threshold for pain is ridiculously high. I was in full blown labor with Bitsy and thought it was her having the hiccups...yeah, I can handle a lot) I ended up spending six hours in the ER getting iv drugs, ultra sounds, and blood work. I followed up with my doctor yesterday who decided he didn't like that I was still in so much pain so he sent me in for an emergency cat scan. Cat scans, for those who haven't had them, are interesting. The contrast iv they give you makes your whole body feel hot-not like sweating hot, but an internal warmth that you might feel when pleasantly drunk (you know, the feeling you have when you're sitting around a campfire, drinking schnapps with your friends and feel like everything is right with the world? that's how it feels-not the 'oh lord the world is spinning way too fast oh here comes the puke' hork into a bush and on your shoes feeling)
Today I went to the doctor as a follow up and it turns out that I don't have a burst appendix (as he suspected) however he couldn't really SEE my appendix because it's covered in scar tissue thanks to my first c section. I have a small kidney stone as well, though he's not concerned about it, and I did indeed have a cyst burst and have a few more on my ovaries that will probably burst in the future. I love what his prescription was though: walk a mile a day, drink plenty of water, and up your fiber intake. Seems pretty easy, right? Guess we'll see.
Both kiddos are doing well, Gabe is getting ready to do a huge pioneer project; they're going to be reading the first Laura Ingalls Wilder book (which he's read before but whatever) and then doing a huge project to go along with it. He's thinking of dressing as a pioneer, making foods a pioneer would make, and working on a small quilt with me-which should be a ton of fun.
SarahAnne is chugging along nicely, we had a rough week where she was using her inhaler round the clock every four hours, but that seems to be over for now, thank goodness.
Till next time!
It has been quite an adjustment for the kiddos even though I am gone while they are at school. They get off the bus at 2:30 and I am generally home by 3:10-and Geo, of course, is home when they get home. They just aren't used to mom being gone at ALL. To be honest, I'm still not used to be gone in the afternoons yet. Sometimes I wonder if it was the right decision to go back to work and then I quickly knock those thoughts from my head and say of course it was, I love it!
Secondly my health has been kind of out of whack the last few months. I've made no secret about my struggle to lose weight over the last year or so. Last week I had a full panel of blood work done by my doctor to see how my cholesterol levels, hormone levels, etc were doing and the doc finally thinks he's found the root of my problem. I'm losing my hair, cranky and/or weepy constantly, can't lose weight, have awful menstrual cycles, etc. Turns out the doc thinks I have PCOS which is poly cystic ovarian sydrome( read about it here) He started me on a med to try and help the cysts go down and help with the other symptoms I'm having. The good news is that I've already started to lose weight AND my blood sugar levels are going down.
Sunday night was the start of a three day adventure for me, health wise. Sunday night I felt a pop on ovary. I didn't think too much of it as I have cysts burst once a month or so; I took a pain pill and went to sleep only to wake up Monday morning feeling even worse than I thought possible (I would like to note that my threshold for pain is ridiculously high. I was in full blown labor with Bitsy and thought it was her having the hiccups...yeah, I can handle a lot) I ended up spending six hours in the ER getting iv drugs, ultra sounds, and blood work. I followed up with my doctor yesterday who decided he didn't like that I was still in so much pain so he sent me in for an emergency cat scan. Cat scans, for those who haven't had them, are interesting. The contrast iv they give you makes your whole body feel hot-not like sweating hot, but an internal warmth that you might feel when pleasantly drunk (you know, the feeling you have when you're sitting around a campfire, drinking schnapps with your friends and feel like everything is right with the world? that's how it feels-not the 'oh lord the world is spinning way too fast oh here comes the puke' hork into a bush and on your shoes feeling)
Today I went to the doctor as a follow up and it turns out that I don't have a burst appendix (as he suspected) however he couldn't really SEE my appendix because it's covered in scar tissue thanks to my first c section. I have a small kidney stone as well, though he's not concerned about it, and I did indeed have a cyst burst and have a few more on my ovaries that will probably burst in the future. I love what his prescription was though: walk a mile a day, drink plenty of water, and up your fiber intake. Seems pretty easy, right? Guess we'll see.
Both kiddos are doing well, Gabe is getting ready to do a huge pioneer project; they're going to be reading the first Laura Ingalls Wilder book (which he's read before but whatever) and then doing a huge project to go along with it. He's thinking of dressing as a pioneer, making foods a pioneer would make, and working on a small quilt with me-which should be a ton of fun.
SarahAnne is chugging along nicely, we had a rough week where she was using her inhaler round the clock every four hours, but that seems to be over for now, thank goodness.
Till next time!
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