Adding Days to our Lives....

I suppose I can be a bit dense. God ALWAYS shows me things through my time in the Word. Always.

He KNEW this would be the week when I was struggling with drug choices et. al. WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD DRUG CHOICES FELL ME LIKE THEY HAVE?  Surrender is tough. I walked through our last miscarriage with sincere trust and rest in the fact that God was in control - that was BIG - and really taking a drug isn't that big, but I woke up in tears this a.m. It is just so HARD to know what to do with all the lab results and doctor's voices.

Bottom line: knowing and believing that God is sovereign I have STILL allowed myself to be very worried about taking a Cat X drug that would present problems if I get pregnant. I've been presented with another option. That option first led to elation (see post earlier this week) and then to confusion as I read that there seem to be heavy indicators of nasty side effects.

I've been fighting. I've been angry. I've been sad. I'm learning to let the anger/emotions motivate me to work out and keep making good choices (as opposed to throwing in the towel and eating a double, bacon, cheeseburger with large fries AND a SODA!). I look at Stacia and remember my "heartless" (JUST KIDDING) doctor saying "Would you like to be around to raise your youngest child?"  And I know that I will keep plodding along. I do want to be here.

I've worried. BUT GOD knew that I would be worried this week. I've read Matthew, Mark, Luke...and THREE times this week I've read that worry will not add a single day to my life. THREE times I've read to seek first His kingdom. THREE times I've read that the Father cares for me. THREE times I've read that the worries of this world can choke out the work of the Word in my life.  It almost seems like Someone was in that rash decision to read the Bible in 90 days - Someone knew that I would need to read these passages over and over this week before they would germinate. Someone knows my heart (that I desire to serve Him wholeheartedly and dwell minute by minute in His presence), and yet, I'm dense at times. I spent my time on the bike today praying. I'm getting it. I'm giving the worry to Him. He knows.

I'm praying for wisdom to sort through the haze of info and make a wise decision. Mike is a huge help here because you all know that I wouldn't be doing any drugs if HE hadn't put his foot down and told me to listen to the doctor. ::snort::

I plan to make a chart. ::snort:: Yes, a CHART. I will list each drug, the side effects, how it works, what effect it may have on pregnancy, and then I'll be able to SEE a bit clearer. Yes, I know that my Bible Study ladies will get a kick out of that admission. I shared this with Liz, a fellow homeschooler, and she told me that I'm "such a homeschooler."  LOL I'm going to make a chart in my next spare time slot, and I wrote all this out to let you know that I've determined to surrender this to God and quit the worrying - as many times a day as I need to.

I'm remembering DO NOT FRET! Choose Joy! my personal mantra. Isn't it totally silly that I could sail through a miscarriage and be undone by DRUG CHOICES??????

What a Week...

This week has been far too busy! I've had appointments, commitments, etc OUTSIDE of the home every day of the week. I used to love running. Now I have big commitments INSIDE my home, and I would rather stay home and do them justice. Things will not let up until at least Monday - and then we'll be into a busy week with Lent services etc. I guess another week.
Add to this the constant refrain that I must make "workouts" a priority, and I don't have enough time in the day, but the end of March is coming...
I have freely admitted that I was FAR too busy in outside ministry at Elmendorf.  I'm feeling that I'll slide back into that shortly if I don't nip this in the bud.  Let the nipping begin. ::snort::

The Day that Would NOT End....

We begin with Tuesday - just a couple of highlights.  We discovered a squirrel in our Bible Study room.  When finalizing our United order I deleted myself. ::snort::
TODAY....
I got my Bible Reading done (I really think I AM going to be done in 90 days) and was at the base at 9:30 for a tax appointment. The poor dear was a bit rattled, evidently. She informed me that I wasn't allowed more than 4 dependents. She also didn't think I had to claim the AK PFD $ on our federal taxes. (Both are false assumptions).
The appt took longer than expected, and I missed the gym.
Home to do some school.
Fired up Turbo Tax.....fielded several calls from the nice tax folks at the base...I'm getting a much bigger refund from Turbo Tax...so the plan is to look at them side by side and figure out what is going on.
Off to get my hair done.
Ah - Mike is working late to write OPR's and Medal packages - that will not be understood unless you are military, but I'm too tired to rewrite tonight. ::snort::
Jamin is working. Jared and Josiah went out on the town with friends.
The littles and I headed to the gym for that workout I missed this a.m. Brawling in the Family Fitness room cut that a bit shorter than I would have liked. ::Sigh::
Dinner
More Turbo Tax printing.....
Kids are settling down, I'm showering and going to go read or something....
Lance Mackay won the Iditarod....we were pulling for King or Buser....But Buser played the best trick on the officials....I think he should get a bonus. Darshia, thanks so much for sending the insert from the paper and the posters. We really loved the one with all of Mackay's dogs. It is cool that he won both the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod two years in a row....OK it IS cool he won. LOL

It's not working for me.....

Mike and I met in Bible College. We were still in college when we married. He worked nights, for years. I became a night owl. I loved the quiet hours. I got so much done. Mike and I had children. I loved the morning hours. It was so quiet. I got so much done, but Mike is still a night owl, and so, I'm still a night owl.
I discovered something with this time change: being both a night owl and an early riser ISN'T WORKING FOR ME like it did in my 20's. I'm going to have to begin to get to bed at a "sane" hour, and not get up until at least 5:30.....because I need to remember my name and the multiplication tables in the middle hours of the day.

Cookies or Cake?

I suggested the kids make cake mix cookies while I wrestled with spread sheets for our United co-op. These were Bre's favorite to make with them. I had purchased some cake mixes when our local health food store went out of business JUST to make these cookies.
We got out the ingredients. I left these two to supervise.

Somehow I confused them. I gave them a recipe for cookies, but they don't remember cooking with cake mixes and so they made a cake. ::snort::

I'm tired. We had two doctor's appointments, a lunch engagement, a gym appointment, United Co-op to figure out, school, bills to pay, speech, drugs to research - it was a full day.
ALL are OFF due to the time change!!! Zander and I seem to have the most difficult time with the changes. I'll have to post the blog tour review and giveaway tomorrow.

Doctors!!!

I saw another doctor today. "My" doctor is at Officer Training School of some sort. I was glad to see another doctor, a female doctor, who listened and understood my qualms about taking a Cat X drug. She agreed that this is not a drug to be taking at my age and with the possibility of further pregnancies. My other doc kept saying "my job is to treat symptoms as they present. I don't treat possibilities." Shew. THIS doc understood that possibilities ARE important to look at when asking someone to take a drug that could wreak havoc for years.
The good news is that my total cholesterol has dropped 90 points. I'm well below 200. My doc had said when it was below 200 I could go off the meds and try to maintain with lifestyle IF I'd have labs once a month. This doc was shocked he agreed to that - and that led to me telling her the WHOLE story about being Quiver Full and not wanting to take Cat X blah, blah, blah. She understood. She went to look for a drug that may help and that I could take if I was pregnant and wouldn't harm a baby. NO, I'm NOT pregnant....but I don't want to be taking nasty drugs.
She said the fact that my numbers didn't respond to diet and lifestyle change for 3 years and then drastically dropped after 4 weeks of Zocor shows that this is genetics. My other labs showed that I'm low on protein and calcium so she KNEW I'd not been eating a lot of red meat and whole milk. ::snort:: She believes if I do go off the drugs altogether, I will see my number rise to "dangerously high" levels again.
Her plan was for me to take a Cat C drug until I'm 50 and then go back on the Zocor. Evidently the Statin drugs, Zocor, really is the best for me to be taking....BUT she understood why I didn't want to take it with the possibility of pregnancy. I came home and researched and discovered that the side effects of gemfibrozil sound AWFUL. I guess I can try it for a month and see. I mean my liver didn't explode on Zocor. I learned to deal with the aches in my legs. I guess I'll be trying this new one for a month and seeing what happens (gallstones, nausea, dizzines, weight loss). I do NOT want to take the Niacin - she said it's like having perpetual hot flashes and from watching friends endure THOSE, I know I don't want that drug. LOL That would be JUST what a person dreams of...morning sickness AND hot flashes...the best of both worlds right there. ::snort::
I went to the gym and got in 45 minutes of cardio before I came home.

Weekly Fitness Goals

Weekly Goal - 240 Minutes (40 minutes most days)
Totaly Weekly Minutes - 273 minutes!!!!!
Annual Goal - 11,700 minutes (2900 by end of March)
Minutes to Date - 1,998 minutes

Monday - Nada

Tuesday - 75 minutes
45 minutes recumbent bike
30 elliptical machine

Wednesday - 75 Minutes
33 minutes - elliptical machine
42 minutes - recumbent bike

THURSDAY - 45 Minutes (recumbent bike)

FRIDAY - 78 Minutes
65 minutes - recumbent bike
13 minutes - elliptical machine
To see who else has participated this week, click HERE. For more info about the challenge, click the icon at the top of this post.
Motivation: I suspect I should write a whole entry on the subject of motivation.....as my thoughts on this have changed a lot in the past two months. The biggest motivating help, at this point, is Mike. He simply won't let me miss too many days. Mike has NEVER nagged me to work out or look fit and trim, but he takes very seriously the dire warnings of raising our wonderful family without me by his side, and so, he keeps prodding me to "make at least 40 minutes a day a priority," and he even watches kids on his day off so that I can make it to the gym. I've conquered my fear of the fit students at the gym...oh well...when they are MY age we'll see what they look like. ::snort:: The challenge now is to....um....actually do the minutes in chunks of 40 minutes a day instead of 3 really long work out days. ::snort:: I also need to find time to work in strength training, too.