My Friend Streppy

     So, strep throat and I have been in an on again-off-again relationship longer than Britney and K-fed.  I catch it at least once a year.  At least.  On one occasion, I even caught it FOUR times.  Once in the summer even.  


Yeck.  


Last year's incident was the sickest I have ever been. Ever.  103.5 degree fever. 
 This is what I looked like. 

Terrible, right?  


     Well, good ole' streppy is back.  Two sick days and one z-pack later, and I think I'm on the mend.  Tonight, I drug myself to Parent/Teacher Conferences.  I ended up having some down time which was both a blessing and a curse.  In my experience, when you are trapped, alone in a classroom for an extended period of time, you start to go a little nutty...thinking about all The Stuff you all still have left to do as a class.  


Holiest of all Holy Cows.  


There are math facts to memorize and presidents to study.  Mountains to draw and reports to write.  


Then came The Glumps.  The Shoulda-woulda-coulda's.  The Nothing's-Ever-Good-Enough's. 


Meh. 


I shouldn't have missed these two days (um. see above.  Yes. I should have).  We should have finished this unit faster.  I should have skipped ahead and covered this instead. 


You know the drill.    


But on the way home, I thought of this quote. 

     I think we're gonna be ok.  Guess what.  You will be, too.  And here's another photo taken after last year's Strep Throat Debacle....so that first photo doesn't haunt your dreams.  

Love, blurry Macbook photos, and now I want to grow my hair out again, 
H.  

Tender Mercies or, "It's called Propane, Bobby..."

     I sort of feel like we are graduating- like we really aren't "newlyweds" anymore.  That thought used to make me a little sad, but now- I am reveling in the fact that Tim and I have, to a certain extent, caught our stride.  During the first year of our marriage, I had a really, really difficult group of kiddos.  One with cancer, one with vision loss and a rare, terminal illness, two with developmental issues, the list goes on. Did I also mention that I was in the middle of earning my Master's degree?  


((sigh))


It was a tough year.  Tim was working a lot.  We had each just lost a grandparent.  We were merely surviving. 


     The second year, I think- was the hardest. Perhaps, it was the hardest because we finally had time. He had time to think about how annoying it is when I load the dishwasher as if a tiny grenade has gone off inside it.  

     I had time to overanalyze and pout over absolutely everything that came out of his mouth.  Yes, for six months or so, I became THAT wife.  Yikes.  


We usually called that "being cats & dogs" because that was the way we were "fighting."  


But now?  


Well, now that we are rounding the corner on year three, I think we have both managed to sync up.  When he's a cat, I'm a cat.  When I'm a dog, he's a dog.  


Thank you, Jesus.  (and I mean that with all sincerity).  


With that being said, maybe when you "graduate" out of newlywedishness,*  mastering the wood stove is yet another benefit.  


     In case you were wondering, the majority of our credit card debt stems from the fact that our house is was heated with propane, and in case you were also wondering, propane must come from five carat diamonds or the bones of exotic, endangered animals because propane.is.expensive.  


We were not prepared to spend that kind of money on something so stinky and expensive. 


     So, for a while, we tried heating our entire house with space heaters and a wood stove.  The house would sink to the low fifties while we were gone during the day.  It would take hours to creep into the low sixties at night.  


I did not know how cold we were keeping it until I saw how many "Photobooth" pictures were of me wearing my coat.  

Ha.  See?  


Oh, the life of an impoverished and (somewhat naive) newlywed.  


I used to hate our wood stove.  I think I even have that fact listed somewhere in my profile on an obscure, social networking site.  


But this year?  The wood stove has decided to play nice.  I think it has to do with the fact that we've had an outpouring of fire wood these days.  It seems as if, for a while, people were constantly coming up to Tim and asking if he could come get a fallen tree out of their yard or pick up a few miscellaneous logs...a family friend, a cousin, a choir member at church.  


So, now we have wood.  Lots and lots of dry, seasoned wood (and a few more baseboard heaters to boot).  


I think in mormon culture, they call those kinds of things "Tender Mercies."  Times when God just totally throws you a bone.  


What can I say?  I've said it once...ok a lot, and I will say it again.  


The Lord provides.  


So, if you have a wood stove or something else in your life that is being particularly dastardly, hang in there.  


You'll get the best of it in the end. 


See- here's living proof.  This is a picture of me NOT wearing my coat in the living room.  The current temperature is 70 degrees, and if the stove wasn't so incredibly hot right now, I'd hug it...and kiss it on the cheek.  


Look mom, no coat! 

Love and NOT being able to see my breath in the living room, 
H.  


This was wayyy longer than what I had intended.  Thank you for reading 9 paragraphs about my wood stove.  


Seriously.  Thank you.  


*Oh yea, and newlywedishness is not a word.  Don't really try to use it.