"He was drinking the drugs"- Darby Zins 2016
"I wont go away to a college, I'll just go to college close by and come home at night. If i go away to college I'll end up with Junky friends who will leave messes everywhere and there will be long lines to use the bathroom" Cooper Zins 2016
"I'll go the college where you went to college....is that a good school?" Darby 2016
"We need to go to the middle east and visit the Britannica, but we need to protect ourselves from terrorism so we'll get a knife when we get off the plane so were safe"
If Trump wins, kiss your tacos goodbye, he's gonna ban taco's- Darby Zins Septemeber 2016
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Born Hated
I met my friend Precious at a bible study. It was a group of girls I didn't meet with regularly but somehow I was invited to this gal Danny's house and so I showed up, a little late. By the time I walked in the door they were already immersed in greetings and catching up and just diving into some worship. We were in a little 1950's ranch house , Michigan, late February...snow still on the icy ground, but enough winter to just make everything look a little dirty and cold outside. The house filled with gals who love Jesus sitting on couches and chairs pulled in from the small dining area, all over an old wooden floor with toddler toys tucked away in the corners. There was one open seat on a big upholstered chair, it was seated next to a wooden dining room table chair where Precious sat.
A quick introduction was made. "Jen, this is Precious....we just met her yesterday while having coffee at a supermarket" Precious seemed a bit shy and uncomfortable in this setting. Who wouldn't?...a room full of singing and laughing Jesus freak white girls you met just the day before. Precious was from an entirely different world...a 22 year old black gal from Muskegon heights who has stories that most of us can't even comprehend. Her world consisted of parents who hated her, blamed her, gang life, drugs, gaming the system, growing up with unspeakable horrors, and violence. Her life was changed when she met a white woman, Natalie, at the rescue mission who eventually adopted her as a late teenager and told her about Jesus. So she was open to white girls and Jesus, just not quite comfortable in such a scene.
Right away I noticed Precious sounded like she was having trouble breathing and I asked if she had a cold. The other gals piped up on her behalf. "So, Precious is allergic to dogs and Danny has a dog, but we took care of it...that's why the windows are opened (and its freezing in here!) We're trying to let the room air out. Precious seemed to go along with this plan, I was like "okay, sure, sounds like its under control."
So Danny starts strumming her acoustic and the girls start singing worship songs...a few minutes in...I just notice.....
Man, this girl is just laboring hard to breath, it seemed to be getting worse and worse. She sounded like a fish out of water. So I piped up: "Stop the Jesus music...Danny, do you have Benadryl in the house? This open window, lets air the place out business isn't working". "Yea that's a good idea" someone said and everyone seemed to agree given Precious' obvious deteriorating condition. Danny scurried to the kitchen a few steps away and we could hear her rifling through the cabinets but she came up empty handed. Again, they said "well the windows are open so it should get better." What I would later find out is that opening a window in a house with animals only makes things worse. The dog hairs and allergen causing animal particles just get stirred up by the moving air now moving about the room.
"I'm taking her to the store to get some Benadryl, lets go Precious"...Precious looked relieved, she could barely talk. The girls started praying for healing for her and wanted to lay hands on her. I so appreciate prayer and believe wholly in the power of Gods responding to our petitions...but in the moment it seemed absurd. Here this gal didn't need us calling out to Jesus or us laying hands on her to breath again, she needed to get out of that house with animal particles floating around that she was allergic to!...the common sense nature of the situation seemed to escape everyone there.
We left and headed to the closest store, a Meijer's maybe four miles away, a decent 12 minute drive. Precious couldn't even talk she was laboring so hard to get breath. We got to Meijer's, we got her the Benadryl and she started recovering. When she could speak again....she thanked me for getting her out of there...she said "Man, if I had been in that house for five minutes longer, I would have passed out dead on the floor". I asked "Why didn't you say something?!". I'll never forget her response: " I didn't want to interrupt their bible study, I don't really know those girls". I said "Precious...if you DIE at their bible study, that's a major interruption!!" Needless to say, I liked Precious right away....cause who the hell is going to just die at a bible study to not interrupt a bunch of white girls, she clearly was crazy...and that's my kind of friend:)
I don't know how much time passed between Precious' near death experience at Danny's bible study and my next visit to Jericho road where she was going with some of those gals but eventually I was there, and I saw the only person Gods ever given me an opportunity to save from dying. I invited her to Panera after church. We sat down and talked about all kinds of things. This girl started to tell me her unbelievable and uncomprehendable story...its a testimony unfolding.
Precious was "born hated" (she would later describe it to me in those words). Her parents young when they had her, maybe 16 & 20 years old and she had asthma, she was born premature weighing only 2 1/2 pounds. In 1987, living in Muskegon heights, the doctors told her parents she would have a lifetime of disabilities. She had frequent breathing problems and ended up in the doctors office and hospital often. She had to wear a breathing machine. Her young parents were mortified and embarrassed by her. They argued about who would go to doctor visits and who would be seen in public with her and that breathing machine. They likely would have given her away but were told at some point if they kept her, they would receive a decent social security check for her disabilities every month. Both parents did drugs and drank, her dad barely worked and her mom would do "tricks" for extra money...bringing young Precious along so her dad wouldn't be suspicious. The burden of Precious became valuable like a commodity, a way to earn money. She was quarantined to her bedroom in the back of the house and the parents went on to have three more "normal" children in the subsequent years.
Because of her social security check and claim by the medical professionals that Precious would never be normal...she was always treated as such. She was later diagnosed as adhd, her parents frequently called her dumb and slow, and Precious believed this lie. When things escalated between her parents, her mother frequently stepping out with other men on her dad...her dad eventually turned to Precious for his sexual gratification...she was only 4 years old. Her dad used the typical threats of violence child molesters use telling her he's kill her and drown her in the lake if she ever told anyone.
precious got quiet.
The family might have had their suspicions, that's debatable, but the parents would claim she was just slow and mildly retarded. This continued for years through the public school system. Precious stayed in special education classes where other students would mock her and she was embarrassed.
Knowing Precious now...today she is 28 years old...she's a beautiful, creative, bigger than life personality gal who God called out as his own. Its miraculous that she can sit and tell me this story in her right mind with her history of parental abuse.
The rape went on until she was 14 years old and ran away to a neighbors house shaking with fear and screaming for help finally breaking her silence to her horrified neighbors down the street. "My dad raped me and beat me and I just ran away!. A few seconds later her mother was pounding on the door to drag her back home to her father, which she did. Her dad tried to bribe her into not telling anyone, he promised to give her anything she wanted, but it was too late...the police were pounding on the door and her dad was arrested. The police found 2 notebooks that precious had kept detailing her life of abuse at the hands of her father. It was 200 pages of evidence used in court to convict her father of a 14 year sentence. He gets out next year.
Her mother blamed her for wrecking her marriage...a month later her mom had a new man in her house and they moved away so Precious wouldn't wreck her new relationship too. To give you a glimpse of the awfulness of it all...when her mom stumbled upon her journal she couldn't read well but she could read enough and the revelation of abuse was made known...precious' dad had been ill with a fever. Her mom took her aside and asked "I need to know if this real (what) you wrote" Precious head fell down and she played with her hands not knowing what to say because she knew whatever she said that what her dad was doing to her was wrong....."He did fuck you, he touch you" her mother said when Precious' silence was deafening and her silence answered her mothers worst fears.
Today, the rest of the family still rejects Precious, her siblings who didn't suffer the physical and sexual abuse of their father had more love and affection given to them and were clueless of the hell Precious lived. Even with her father being sentenced, the family and mother still blame Precious. With his release comin up, they actually tease her about it jokingly "Hes gonna be out soon, what you gonna do"?
A quick introduction was made. "Jen, this is Precious....we just met her yesterday while having coffee at a supermarket" Precious seemed a bit shy and uncomfortable in this setting. Who wouldn't?...a room full of singing and laughing Jesus freak white girls you met just the day before. Precious was from an entirely different world...a 22 year old black gal from Muskegon heights who has stories that most of us can't even comprehend. Her world consisted of parents who hated her, blamed her, gang life, drugs, gaming the system, growing up with unspeakable horrors, and violence. Her life was changed when she met a white woman, Natalie, at the rescue mission who eventually adopted her as a late teenager and told her about Jesus. So she was open to white girls and Jesus, just not quite comfortable in such a scene.
Right away I noticed Precious sounded like she was having trouble breathing and I asked if she had a cold. The other gals piped up on her behalf. "So, Precious is allergic to dogs and Danny has a dog, but we took care of it...that's why the windows are opened (and its freezing in here!) We're trying to let the room air out. Precious seemed to go along with this plan, I was like "okay, sure, sounds like its under control."
So Danny starts strumming her acoustic and the girls start singing worship songs...a few minutes in...I just notice.....
Man, this girl is just laboring hard to breath, it seemed to be getting worse and worse. She sounded like a fish out of water. So I piped up: "Stop the Jesus music...Danny, do you have Benadryl in the house? This open window, lets air the place out business isn't working". "Yea that's a good idea" someone said and everyone seemed to agree given Precious' obvious deteriorating condition. Danny scurried to the kitchen a few steps away and we could hear her rifling through the cabinets but she came up empty handed. Again, they said "well the windows are open so it should get better." What I would later find out is that opening a window in a house with animals only makes things worse. The dog hairs and allergen causing animal particles just get stirred up by the moving air now moving about the room.
"I'm taking her to the store to get some Benadryl, lets go Precious"...Precious looked relieved, she could barely talk. The girls started praying for healing for her and wanted to lay hands on her. I so appreciate prayer and believe wholly in the power of Gods responding to our petitions...but in the moment it seemed absurd. Here this gal didn't need us calling out to Jesus or us laying hands on her to breath again, she needed to get out of that house with animal particles floating around that she was allergic to!...the common sense nature of the situation seemed to escape everyone there.
We left and headed to the closest store, a Meijer's maybe four miles away, a decent 12 minute drive. Precious couldn't even talk she was laboring so hard to get breath. We got to Meijer's, we got her the Benadryl and she started recovering. When she could speak again....she thanked me for getting her out of there...she said "Man, if I had been in that house for five minutes longer, I would have passed out dead on the floor". I asked "Why didn't you say something?!". I'll never forget her response: " I didn't want to interrupt their bible study, I don't really know those girls". I said "Precious...if you DIE at their bible study, that's a major interruption!!" Needless to say, I liked Precious right away....cause who the hell is going to just die at a bible study to not interrupt a bunch of white girls, she clearly was crazy...and that's my kind of friend:)
I don't know how much time passed between Precious' near death experience at Danny's bible study and my next visit to Jericho road where she was going with some of those gals but eventually I was there, and I saw the only person Gods ever given me an opportunity to save from dying. I invited her to Panera after church. We sat down and talked about all kinds of things. This girl started to tell me her unbelievable and uncomprehendable story...its a testimony unfolding.
Precious was "born hated" (she would later describe it to me in those words). Her parents young when they had her, maybe 16 & 20 years old and she had asthma, she was born premature weighing only 2 1/2 pounds. In 1987, living in Muskegon heights, the doctors told her parents she would have a lifetime of disabilities. She had frequent breathing problems and ended up in the doctors office and hospital often. She had to wear a breathing machine. Her young parents were mortified and embarrassed by her. They argued about who would go to doctor visits and who would be seen in public with her and that breathing machine. They likely would have given her away but were told at some point if they kept her, they would receive a decent social security check for her disabilities every month. Both parents did drugs and drank, her dad barely worked and her mom would do "tricks" for extra money...bringing young Precious along so her dad wouldn't be suspicious. The burden of Precious became valuable like a commodity, a way to earn money. She was quarantined to her bedroom in the back of the house and the parents went on to have three more "normal" children in the subsequent years.
Because of her social security check and claim by the medical professionals that Precious would never be normal...she was always treated as such. She was later diagnosed as adhd, her parents frequently called her dumb and slow, and Precious believed this lie. When things escalated between her parents, her mother frequently stepping out with other men on her dad...her dad eventually turned to Precious for his sexual gratification...she was only 4 years old. Her dad used the typical threats of violence child molesters use telling her he's kill her and drown her in the lake if she ever told anyone.
precious got quiet.
The family might have had their suspicions, that's debatable, but the parents would claim she was just slow and mildly retarded. This continued for years through the public school system. Precious stayed in special education classes where other students would mock her and she was embarrassed.
Knowing Precious now...today she is 28 years old...she's a beautiful, creative, bigger than life personality gal who God called out as his own. Its miraculous that she can sit and tell me this story in her right mind with her history of parental abuse.
The rape went on until she was 14 years old and ran away to a neighbors house shaking with fear and screaming for help finally breaking her silence to her horrified neighbors down the street. "My dad raped me and beat me and I just ran away!. A few seconds later her mother was pounding on the door to drag her back home to her father, which she did. Her dad tried to bribe her into not telling anyone, he promised to give her anything she wanted, but it was too late...the police were pounding on the door and her dad was arrested. The police found 2 notebooks that precious had kept detailing her life of abuse at the hands of her father. It was 200 pages of evidence used in court to convict her father of a 14 year sentence. He gets out next year.
Her mother blamed her for wrecking her marriage...a month later her mom had a new man in her house and they moved away so Precious wouldn't wreck her new relationship too. To give you a glimpse of the awfulness of it all...when her mom stumbled upon her journal she couldn't read well but she could read enough and the revelation of abuse was made known...precious' dad had been ill with a fever. Her mom took her aside and asked "I need to know if this real (what) you wrote" Precious head fell down and she played with her hands not knowing what to say because she knew whatever she said that what her dad was doing to her was wrong....."He did fuck you, he touch you" her mother said when Precious' silence was deafening and her silence answered her mothers worst fears.
Today, the rest of the family still rejects Precious, her siblings who didn't suffer the physical and sexual abuse of their father had more love and affection given to them and were clueless of the hell Precious lived. Even with her father being sentenced, the family and mother still blame Precious. With his release comin up, they actually tease her about it jokingly "Hes gonna be out soon, what you gonna do"?
Twins fears
My twins are hilarious...I wish I'd recorded over the years all the hilarity that e from them...whether its intentional or not.
My twins are super scared of many things, the dark, stuffed animals looking at them, butterflies (Darby), being alone in a room, being alone on the floor of the house. They just have a real heightened sensitivity to fears.
In Gatlinburg, it was butterflies for Darby....the water snake that made its way into our whitewater raft while the boys were sitting on the floor of said raft was no problem and they defended its right to remain a passenger with us...but the beautiful black and blue monarchs on the trails that day were cause to run and stay away from certain areas. Cooper didn't mind the butterflies and found a sort of monarch haven in one spot filled with 100's of butterflies that surrounded him...Darby looked on from 100 feet away with disgust. But down the same trail a mile or so later Darby didn't hesitate to snatch the snake off the ground, even as it was biting at him...he fiercely held on. It makes no sense!
The bug fear made selling boy scout popcorn door to door really hard. I would drive along in the caravan with the hatch popped open in the back while the boys ran door to door and Id creep along with the supplies. Unfortunately spider season parallels popcorn selling season so half the houses Darby or Cooper would walk up to and run away tears streaming down their face because they'd seen a spider, or the house looked spooky. One house had a rocking chair inside they could see through the window that somehow made them think the house was haunted! I'm so glad we dropped out of Scouts this year.
They sleep with the hallway light on every night and will throw a fit if one has to go upstairs to do something when no one else in on the second floor. Earlier this year they were both upstairs brushing their teeth while Jeff and i were downstairs watching an episode of the Sopranos. All of a sudden, they started shrieking like a murderer was trying to kill them...I mean shrieking...both screaming in sheer horror. So Jeff and I RUN upstairs to see what happened and they are both just frozen terrified standing in front of the mirrors crying and screaming. Evidently they heard the music from the Soprano's episode playing downstairs and didn't know where it came from and it just spooked them...so when one got spooked the other back me equally spooked. We were beside ourselves when we figured out that it was nothing.
Now that incident was probably a year ago...Jeff and I have had enough of the fear. Darby makes us turn all his stuffed animals and robot toys around s none of them are looking at him while he sleeps. If there's a book with a cover they deem scary, it cant be in their rooms...they're serious about this stuff. So we're trying to tackle this fear with them.
Jeff was in Chicago for the eagles game this weekend and I said it "its time to face these fears, the fears are irrational and we cant let them control us" I even picked up a couple pamphlets on the topic of fear from church Sunday to help them and a book...."Big God, small me".
Unfortunately, I had gone into Darby's room that day with new sheets and to cutify the whole place. I moved his stuffed dog from the dresser to the bed...eyes peering straight ahead. When Darby when upstairs to brush his teeth...alone, in an effort face his fear, he walked into his bedroom and saw the dog was moved AND staring right at him!! Sheer terror followed my running and screaming like an ax murderer was at his heels! It took him a little while to calm down but I explained I had moved it and he seemed to get over it.
When he went to bed, he asked me to close his closet doors...because closets are of course scary too. Well, i had opened up the windows all over the house that day and the pressure from the moving air caused one of the door to pop open a few minutes later which sparked the fear, initiated the terror screaming and crying which is a domino effect on twins so Coopers fear in the room next door is sparked and they're both again screaming and crying and running to safety downstairs.
Oh Lord bless these boys with a spirit of courage, erase irrational fear from their hearts and fill the void with your confidence...my God ONLY you can do this!
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
James Macdonald told me I was going to die
In mid July, A week before my wedding reception, I was washing my face to get ready for bed. I noticed a knot on the front of my neck. I was a little concerned but I had the reception coming up which I already had a ton of anxiety over. I didn't have too much time to do anything about my neck issue which I figured would go away on its own. Since I'd also had a cold around the time of the reception, i thought maybe Id just had a swollen lymph node from being sick. Plus I'm cheap, and doctor visits are expensive. We pay the first $4k every year on our health plan and I'd just dished out alot of cash on the wedding reception. I was also chewing tobacco for a few weeks, since my neighbors husband gifted me a tin of grizzly chewing tobacco for my 40th birthday, I thought it was likely that may have caused some lymph nodes to swell up.
August 10th rolled around and the knot was still there. I could only feel it when I touched my neck. It wasn't so much that it was painful, it didn't hurt at all, its existence just caused mild concern having just turned 40 years old during the summer. I called my doctors office and they got me in right away. I met with a new PA named Monica Lyons. She ordered an ultrasound and some thyroid tests. She thought the nodule was likely a swollen thyroid. It wasn't , the thyroid tests came back normal. I put off the ultrasound thinking the knot might go away on its own, but it didn't. On our way back from Gatlinburg in early September it seemed to have grown larger and was more noticeable. It almost felt like someone had their hand against my throat and was choking me. So I scheduled the ultrasound when I got home.
The day of my ultrasound, I played pickleball to keep my wandering mind off things. I was driving home from Pickleball to change my clothes before heading to the ultrasound. I put my hand up to my neck to feel the knot on my neck once more, you know to make sure it was still there. I had the radio on and was listening to James McDonald's Walk in the Word sermon on moody radio. I had literally JUST put my hand up to my neck and was feeling this thing when James said in that moment these words:
"If you have a lump on your breast or your neck and you're headed to the doctor to find out what the prognosis is...here it is: you're going to die."
Word for word, from James MacDonalds Walk in the word series thats what he said...at exactly.that.moment. So that scared the hell out of me, I was sure my end was near.
I headed to the ultrasound place and soon enough that sucker was up on the monitor in full view , a centimeter sized "nodule" or "neckmass" on the front of my neck, almost like 2 nodules that were fused together. I left in a complete daze considering the implications of this thing being cancerous and the possibility of me dying a slow horrific cancerous death at the tender age of forty. Maybe it was the strange experience of having James Macdonald announce my prognosis at such an untimely moment, or the very fresh experience of having a technician confirm a strange mass growing on my neck only two months after my 40th birthday and wedding reception. I rolled into my forties looking and feeling great. I even took a selfie to show my facebook world how hot I still was approaching my mid life crisis. Then I got lumpy. My kids would now grow up wearing dirty underwear forever and never brushing their teeth enough and my husband would have to find a new wife on the internet She'd for sure be better looking than me, and I'd turn into a fading memory of naggery, burnt casseroles and terrible singing. I bet his new wife will sing like am angel. I hadn't even written my book yet!!
I had to stop at Home Depot on my way home...so there I was in a fog of despair walking through the Home Depot....and I'm not even kidding... this actually happened next...a life size Grim Reaper took a swipe at me with his grim reaper blade. A motion censored Halloween display Grim reaper. Yes that dark hooded and robed personified force that represents death...that Grim reaper. You could purchase him at Home depot for $159, this death symbol came at me out of nowhere because it sensed my motion, it probably sensed my cancerous neck mass!!
Now, if I wasn't already convinced when James Macdonald told me I would die, I was absolutely 100% on board at this point that God was telling me my end was near. And I'm thinking "Lord, Am I seriously about to die, or do you just have a REALLY horrific sense of humor?"
The MRI was scheduled for the following week, it came back benign...that was a great call that led to a renewed sense of gratitude for life, and a reason to drink two bass beers at the Irish festival that night to celebrate life. It took everything I had to not tell every single person I saw smoking a cigarette to quit right then and there , that life was too precious to smoke and give cancer an inch. Jeff was happy I didn't.
I was referred to an ENT who diagnosed my neck mass as a Thyroglossal Duct cyst. He's removing it October 4; they'll send it in and look at it under a microscope to make sure sure there's no cancer there. The good news is only 1-2% of these things are cancerous, i like those odds. And I'll have a cool neck scar that will make everyone think I tired to kill myself. I'll blame it on Jeff, or the election, or Isis, there are so many rumors to make up with a nice neck slice scar.
Update: no cancer, scar healing and life goes on...thank you Jesus for keeping me here a bit longer to testify of your greatness!! xoxoxox
now on to that book I'm supposed to write! Jeffs new angelic singing wife will have to wait until theyre both old and wrinkled to marry him.
August 10th rolled around and the knot was still there. I could only feel it when I touched my neck. It wasn't so much that it was painful, it didn't hurt at all, its existence just caused mild concern having just turned 40 years old during the summer. I called my doctors office and they got me in right away. I met with a new PA named Monica Lyons. She ordered an ultrasound and some thyroid tests. She thought the nodule was likely a swollen thyroid. It wasn't , the thyroid tests came back normal. I put off the ultrasound thinking the knot might go away on its own, but it didn't. On our way back from Gatlinburg in early September it seemed to have grown larger and was more noticeable. It almost felt like someone had their hand against my throat and was choking me. So I scheduled the ultrasound when I got home.
The day of my ultrasound, I played pickleball to keep my wandering mind off things. I was driving home from Pickleball to change my clothes before heading to the ultrasound. I put my hand up to my neck to feel the knot on my neck once more, you know to make sure it was still there. I had the radio on and was listening to James McDonald's Walk in the Word sermon on moody radio. I had literally JUST put my hand up to my neck and was feeling this thing when James said in that moment these words:
"If you have a lump on your breast or your neck and you're headed to the doctor to find out what the prognosis is...here it is: you're going to die."
Word for word, from James MacDonalds Walk in the word series thats what he said...at exactly.that.moment. So that scared the hell out of me, I was sure my end was near.
I headed to the ultrasound place and soon enough that sucker was up on the monitor in full view , a centimeter sized "nodule" or "neckmass" on the front of my neck, almost like 2 nodules that were fused together. I left in a complete daze considering the implications of this thing being cancerous and the possibility of me dying a slow horrific cancerous death at the tender age of forty. Maybe it was the strange experience of having James Macdonald announce my prognosis at such an untimely moment, or the very fresh experience of having a technician confirm a strange mass growing on my neck only two months after my 40th birthday and wedding reception. I rolled into my forties looking and feeling great. I even took a selfie to show my facebook world how hot I still was approaching my mid life crisis. Then I got lumpy. My kids would now grow up wearing dirty underwear forever and never brushing their teeth enough and my husband would have to find a new wife on the internet She'd for sure be better looking than me, and I'd turn into a fading memory of naggery, burnt casseroles and terrible singing. I bet his new wife will sing like am angel. I hadn't even written my book yet!!
I had to stop at Home Depot on my way home...so there I was in a fog of despair walking through the Home Depot....and I'm not even kidding... this actually happened next...a life size Grim Reaper took a swipe at me with his grim reaper blade. A motion censored Halloween display Grim reaper. Yes that dark hooded and robed personified force that represents death...that Grim reaper. You could purchase him at Home depot for $159, this death symbol came at me out of nowhere because it sensed my motion, it probably sensed my cancerous neck mass!!
Now, if I wasn't already convinced when James Macdonald told me I would die, I was absolutely 100% on board at this point that God was telling me my end was near. And I'm thinking "Lord, Am I seriously about to die, or do you just have a REALLY horrific sense of humor?"
The MRI was scheduled for the following week, it came back benign...that was a great call that led to a renewed sense of gratitude for life, and a reason to drink two bass beers at the Irish festival that night to celebrate life. It took everything I had to not tell every single person I saw smoking a cigarette to quit right then and there , that life was too precious to smoke and give cancer an inch. Jeff was happy I didn't.
I was referred to an ENT who diagnosed my neck mass as a Thyroglossal Duct cyst. He's removing it October 4; they'll send it in and look at it under a microscope to make sure sure there's no cancer there. The good news is only 1-2% of these things are cancerous, i like those odds. And I'll have a cool neck scar that will make everyone think I tired to kill myself. I'll blame it on Jeff, or the election, or Isis, there are so many rumors to make up with a nice neck slice scar.
Update: no cancer, scar healing and life goes on...thank you Jesus for keeping me here a bit longer to testify of your greatness!! xoxoxox
now on to that book I'm supposed to write! Jeffs new angelic singing wife will have to wait until theyre both old and wrinkled to marry him.
Driving Miles
Miles finally got his drivers license. His persistence paid off, he nudged us about taking drivers training which he started before his 15th birthday. He turned out to be a decent driver, a bit slower and more cautious than I thought he might be which proved to be irritating for an aggressive driver like me....but a relief for a mom longterm...what mom doesn't want their teenage son driving like an old man?
When we came back from Vero beach this year , 15 hours into the trip in Louisville Kentucky we pulled up to the hotel we reserved exhausted from driving and spending the previous day at Disney, the hotel clerk told us he had JUST given our room away....we called every hotel/motel in Louisville and everything was booked, we called every place en route for the next two hours to no avail. So I sucked it up and hit a Mcdonalds to get a large latte, but the Latte machine was broken, the second Mcdonalds was closed and the third one had just shut their coffee machine down. So after wasting another 40 minutes on a latte hunt, I had no choice but to just kept driving home, only 7 hours to go. It was Miles who offered to drive when I pulled over at a cold sparsley snowing truck stop at 3 am. we were close to the Michigan/Indiana border and I was crying from exhaustion.
Either it was the thought that he'd been able to sleep along the way the previous 18 hours, or the mental exhaustion I was experiencing, or the fact that I didn't want to sit in my car in 30 degrees temperatures with the twins at a truck stop overnight over a few hours from home...so I decided to let a very excited and eager Miles drive. I told him to run in and buy either coffee or mountain dew, or something heavily caffeinated. So here I am in the car waiting and Miles is inside, he runs to the window with his selection for me to approve: Rootbeer. I'm like "are you kidding me?" Caffeine!!" He runs back and grabs a Gatorade and comes back for approval. I just shake my head and I realize he doesn't have a clue that the junk-food drinks Ive allowed them to drink growing up are never caffeinated. So I go in and school him on how to properly pump yourself full of caffeine in a moment like this. He ends up with two Mountain Dews and 3 hours later at 6:30 a.m. we were home. Hallelujah. Was I GLAD to see my husband, and my bed.
He saved money from working at Mulligans Hollow during the winter and saved more working at Culvers this summer. Ive never seen a kid so excited to work at a fast food restaurant. He opened up his own IRA account with Jeffs help and started putting 20% of his paycheck into retirement...the rest goes to car savings. He ended up saving $4,000. Pretty good for a minimum wage worker. He gets so excited about Culvers, the people who work there, the brand itself. He read in Forbes that Culvers was the #1 chain in the country, so he takes this exciting news into work with him and shares it with his manager...his managers response? "That's great, can you go change the trash now?" Priceless! This is a great kid.
He nudged us again to start looking for cars in July. We had one of my facebook friends, Will Nalu talk to Miles and give him the do's and don's when shopping for a used car. Super valuable information even for me! Even so, I almost jumped on buying him a beautiful jaguar the neighbor had for sale. It was in perfect shape, a 2006 with low miles and only $4,000 but everyone said run because of the ridiculous cost to repair Jags. I was on my way to the bank to buy this car when I called a mechanic who heavily enlightened me. Miles definitely smarter than me in that moment, so we passed on the car.
We ended up at Draegers lot in Spring Lake and bough at $4,500 2005 green subaru forrester with 136,000 miles. It came home and dripped fluids all over the driveway...we seem to have taken care of that now but we also found out subarus are notrious for blowing head gaskets and burning oil so we'll see. God willing, the kid gets 4 years out of this car. Maybe we should have purchased the Jaguar instead.
Our neighbor Calvin gave Miles a Trump Pence bumper sticker, Miles said people honk and swear at him all the time.....a family with kids in the car gave him the finger and a few curse words. He backs his car in when he parks and he's the guy who parks farthest away from any building...backed in....no joke, he's THAT guy. Probably not a bad idea considering he's got a political sticker on his car in the worst and most divided election season I've ever experienced in my lifetime.
When we came back from Vero beach this year , 15 hours into the trip in Louisville Kentucky we pulled up to the hotel we reserved exhausted from driving and spending the previous day at Disney, the hotel clerk told us he had JUST given our room away....we called every hotel/motel in Louisville and everything was booked, we called every place en route for the next two hours to no avail. So I sucked it up and hit a Mcdonalds to get a large latte, but the Latte machine was broken, the second Mcdonalds was closed and the third one had just shut their coffee machine down. So after wasting another 40 minutes on a latte hunt, I had no choice but to just kept driving home, only 7 hours to go. It was Miles who offered to drive when I pulled over at a cold sparsley snowing truck stop at 3 am. we were close to the Michigan/Indiana border and I was crying from exhaustion.
Either it was the thought that he'd been able to sleep along the way the previous 18 hours, or the mental exhaustion I was experiencing, or the fact that I didn't want to sit in my car in 30 degrees temperatures with the twins at a truck stop overnight over a few hours from home...so I decided to let a very excited and eager Miles drive. I told him to run in and buy either coffee or mountain dew, or something heavily caffeinated. So here I am in the car waiting and Miles is inside, he runs to the window with his selection for me to approve: Rootbeer. I'm like "are you kidding me?" Caffeine!!" He runs back and grabs a Gatorade and comes back for approval. I just shake my head and I realize he doesn't have a clue that the junk-food drinks Ive allowed them to drink growing up are never caffeinated. So I go in and school him on how to properly pump yourself full of caffeine in a moment like this. He ends up with two Mountain Dews and 3 hours later at 6:30 a.m. we were home. Hallelujah. Was I GLAD to see my husband, and my bed.
He saved money from working at Mulligans Hollow during the winter and saved more working at Culvers this summer. Ive never seen a kid so excited to work at a fast food restaurant. He opened up his own IRA account with Jeffs help and started putting 20% of his paycheck into retirement...the rest goes to car savings. He ended up saving $4,000. Pretty good for a minimum wage worker. He gets so excited about Culvers, the people who work there, the brand itself. He read in Forbes that Culvers was the #1 chain in the country, so he takes this exciting news into work with him and shares it with his manager...his managers response? "That's great, can you go change the trash now?" Priceless! This is a great kid.
He nudged us again to start looking for cars in July. We had one of my facebook friends, Will Nalu talk to Miles and give him the do's and don's when shopping for a used car. Super valuable information even for me! Even so, I almost jumped on buying him a beautiful jaguar the neighbor had for sale. It was in perfect shape, a 2006 with low miles and only $4,000 but everyone said run because of the ridiculous cost to repair Jags. I was on my way to the bank to buy this car when I called a mechanic who heavily enlightened me. Miles definitely smarter than me in that moment, so we passed on the car.
We ended up at Draegers lot in Spring Lake and bough at $4,500 2005 green subaru forrester with 136,000 miles. It came home and dripped fluids all over the driveway...we seem to have taken care of that now but we also found out subarus are notrious for blowing head gaskets and burning oil so we'll see. God willing, the kid gets 4 years out of this car. Maybe we should have purchased the Jaguar instead.
Our neighbor Calvin gave Miles a Trump Pence bumper sticker, Miles said people honk and swear at him all the time.....a family with kids in the car gave him the finger and a few curse words. He backs his car in when he parks and he's the guy who parks farthest away from any building...backed in....no joke, he's THAT guy. Probably not a bad idea considering he's got a political sticker on his car in the worst and most divided election season I've ever experienced in my lifetime.
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