Pie Safe Pantry

We're temporarily moving in with my parents while we finish selling our house & building our new home. Moving into a temporary spot means lots of downsizing & making things work. In my original home, I used a pie safe to display decorative items & store cookbooks and photo books, and I used the hallway linen closet as medical storage.  However, once we moved the pie safe to my parents' kitchen, I knew I wanted to use it as a pantry and medical storage. Here's my work in progress from today. 

On top I stashed my pretty crock pot and our air fryer (which we use ALL the time). 

On the first few shelves, I organized our food items.  It's a bit of playing Tetris when I need certain items, but that's okay. 

On the bottom shelves I have some of our medical supplies-- medicines we need to access regularly (like Zyrtec) and some medical items for diabetes management, etc. 

We also have Aaron's fancy chef knives & our partially used Costco bag of rice. 

The system is a work in progress and I'm sure we'll make adjustments and changes as the weeks progress. 

Until Next Time,

Much Love, Reba

Random Camera Roll

 It's our first day of spring break and it couldn't have come at a better time. Most of this week, I'll try to be productive in moving things during the morning and doing something fun with the kids in the afternoon.  I figured today I'd upload some photos for a quick recap of things we've been up to. 

My mother in law got a puppy about two weeks ago and all 3 kiddos have been loving on her. 

Avery LOVES shopping for flowers! And wind chimes. 

Akuna stayed at my parents' house while we had our house in "show mode." He loves to take a break in the shade after a few (read: 85) rounds of fetch. 

A few weeks ago, this sunrise caught my eye! Such a pretty blue sky & an interesting compilation of clouds!

Photographer Avery snapped this working mom picture!

I love 4 year old selfies!

Frog dissection day was a couple weeks ago and I took this goggle selfish to show my kiddos & my nephews. 

More puppy snuggles!

Avery has LOVED having Akuna back home. She loves to nurture him! 

I took these this morning. So sweet. 

They're all growing up so fast!

Until Next Time,

Much Love, Reba

Updates

So when we knew we were going to be able to buy our property at the beginning of March, we started making arrangements to list our home for sale.  We began decluttering and moving some things over to some storage space away from our house.  Our realtor was going out of town the day after we closed on the land, so we knew we had an extra two weeks to get the house in final order while she was out of town.   

The day before she returned, the house across the street from us went on the market.  A few families looked at that house the evening that the sign showed up in the yard.  Our realtor returned on a Friday and we made plans for her to come over to our house on Saturday afternoon to take pictures and list our home. About seven families looked at the house across the street on Friday evening.  

On Saturday morning, my mom helped us do the final staging and cleaning before pictures.  That afternoon, our realtor arrived and we agreed on a price to list our home.  As she’s taking pictures of the front of our home, a realtor looking at the house across the street asked her what our list price was going to be.  She shared some info, and that realtor said she’d keep our house in mind later in the week when her client came into town.  Our realtor finished taking pictures and we signed the papers necessary to list our home.  She placed her sign in our front yard and left, telling us she knew she’d be in contact soon.   

Aaron and I wandered outside to check something in the garage, then we were going to go pick up our kids from my parents’ house.  I stepped inside to take care of one more thing, and when I turned around, a lady was standing in my garage talking to Aaron!  He came inside and said “I think we’re about to show our house!” Turns out, she is a realtor who was showing the house across the street and noticed our ‘for sale’ sign and came over to chat with Aaron.  She said she’d call our realtor and ask to see it. So I grabbed our dog and got him into our car with us and our realtor called and asked if the couple across the street could look at the house.  We went over to my parents’ house and as soon as I started walking down my parents’ driveway, our realtor called again and asked if another family could see the house.  Apparently, they saw the sign when they came to look at the other house and called our realtor to see if they could see it when the first family was finished.  We said that was fine.  

We took the kids out to eat in town which was long enough to make sure that the two different families were able to fully look around before we came home.  My parents graciously agreed to let our doggie stay with them through this week so he wouldn’t be nervous about all the extra families coming into the house.  Our realtor knew that she could schedule showings during the day on Sunday, and we’d go to church and hang out with my parents and then Aaron’s parents to bide our time.   

On Saturday night, we received a text from the realtor saying that one of the families who saw the house that afternoon put in an offer! She texted a little while later to say that someone wanted to see the house as early as possible on Sunday morning and asked when we could be out of the house. We made arrangements to get out of the house by 8am the next morning. We reviewed the offer from the family who saw the house on Saturday and we agreed that we’d see what happened with the showings on Sunday.  

On Sunday, we made it out of the house by 7:45 and ended up having five families look at the house over the course of the day. In the early afternoon our realtor told us that the family who saw the house at 8am were going to put in an offer. By 4:30, that offer arrived and it was higher than the first. We reviewed both offers side by side and asked our realtor a couple of questions about them both.   

We chose the offer that suited us best and we are currently working down the checklist of things that have to happen next like a home inspection, appraisal, etc. Once we close, we’ll live with my parents while we build our home. My parents have done extensive work in their home to rearrange furniture so we can bring in our things (like dressers and the bunkbed), etc. We’re so thankful for their help and we are ready to begin the next part of this adventure! 

Until Next Time,

Much Love, Reba

March

Our weatherman likes to say that March came in like a lamb, and weather-wise… it did. However, it has been a roaring mess of illness in my home and I’m not thrilled about it but I’m hoping that my ultimate takeaway is to be less stressed about life.  We had a busy week last week already due to things we’ve been anticipating for months & years (more on that in a bit), but Satan deliberately attacked our family with bringing illness upon all three of my children which rendered this mommy exhausted and emotionally spent.    

 

We already don’t get a lot of full nights of sleep because of caring for Michael’s Type One Diabetes.  In fact, over the past eight years, I can count on less than two full hands the number of times I’ve slept all the way through the night.  Don’t get me wrong—it is my greatest joy to care for my children and I’ve adapted quite well to waking up at various times to handle blood sugar issues.  However, when other sicknesses creep in and steal some of the remaining moments of sleep that I get, that wears me down super quickly.   

On Tuesday night, Avery told me she had a tummy ache when she was heading to bed.  I didn’t think too much of it, but I put a bowl beside her bed anyway.  Within four hours, she got sick (and the bowl wasn’t even on her radar).  So we cleaned her up and got a second set of sheets on the bed.  I put the bowl back beside her and went to bed knowing that she was going to get sick again because her pattern is to get sick two to three times before she can get it all out of her little system.  Sure enough, less than two hours later she was sick again.  This time I made it into her room fast enough to help her get some of the sickness into the bowl.  We cleaned her up again, transferred the first set of soiled sheets from the washer to the dryer and put the second set of soiled sheets into the washer.  We arranged her bed with some different sheets and towels and she settled down and slept well for the rest of the night, but I was a wreck. I slept on edge because I was constantly at the ready to jump back up and help her if she was sick, and I was mentally preparing myself that the boys would get it next.  I was basically a zombie the next day and struggled to get through my day without crying because I was so tired.   

That following afternoon, Noah got off the bus looking worn out and said he thought he had a fever. Sure enough, he did.  That fever was so stubborn and it took him a few days for it to finally break.  He even experienced a little bit of eyelid swelling during the course of this, which was really scary.  I had some time on Thursday afternoon and was able to get him into the doctor, and they said it’s just a virus and to keep giving him Tylenol and let it run its course.  It was so discouraging for the fever to stay around so long, and he sure felt terrible during its duration.  He didn’t want to eat or drink or play.  It was rough to get him to drink enough to try to bring that fever down.  He was fully better after a few days, but we had to make sure he had one full day of being totally fine and acting normally before I could send him back to school so he was finally able to return to school on Tuesday.  

 

On Thursday of last week, Michael’s school nurses were concerned with his blood sugar so we ended up checking him out of school early to monitor his blood sugar.  We kept him out of school on Friday just to make sure he wasn’t going to get the same thing his brother had.  He seemed totally fine on Friday and throughout the weekend.  On Monday he went to school as normal and seemed okay.  On Tuesday he said he had a headache, but since he had no fever and because his headache was not intense, we sent him to school.  He made it through the day but still had a headache that afternoon.  On Wednesday morning, he had insulin for his breakfast but then didn’t feel like eating his breakfast.  This can become an emergency situation if he has insulin in his body for carbs that he didn’t actually consume, so he drank some Capri Suns to accommodate for the lack of food carbs.  His tummy felt so bad that he started crying because he didn’t want to go to school. Fortunately, my mother-in-law was able to keep him with her that day and Aaron was able to pick him up from her before she & Avery went to ballet class.  Michael did have a low fever in the late morning, then the fever rose in the evening and broke overnight but has returned today.  Fortunately, at this moment, neither boy has had any vomiting or other issues, but I sure am hoping that this sickness leaves our house soon!  

 

On Tuesday afternoon, I had a 25 minute phone call with our hospital that we go to for endocrinology appointments.  We were working on how to adjust Michael’s insulin dosages to better serve him, and the diabetes educator I spoke with is always so warm and encouraging on the phone.  She said one phrase during this phone call (I’ve underlined it below) that stopped me in my tracks and really made me reexamine how I live my life and how I lead my life.  She said “I want you to know that we are on your team.  You don’t have to apologize if you don’t upload Michael’s pump data fast enough.  We’re not trying to downplay your role as a parent. We know you’re the best person to take care of Michael.  I want you to know that you’re not in trouble, because I can feel your stress through the phone.  Please know you’re doing great and we’re on your side.  We never want you to feel like you’re in trouble.”  It brought tears to my eyes because I was so grateful that she recognized my attempts and efforts to care for my son with everything I have.  But I also felt so embarrassed! I’m not upset at her at all and in fact, I’m SO GLAD that she said it, because it’s made me evaluate how I come across to others.  I don’t want to be the stressed out person.  That one phrase really caused me to pause and think about why I act the way that I do.  It’s made me look for the positives in a situation instead of honing in on the negative.   

 

So…. Despite the sicknesses that my children have faced, none of those instances took God by surprise.  It’s very possible that I was becoming too complacent in my life of earth and God is reminding me that this place is not my true home.  My eternal home is in Heaven where there is no sickness.  In addition, God loves my children more than I’m even capable of doing and He does not want to see them in pain.  I am trusting Him for their healing and I am focused on the true everlasting home that we’ll have one day where these illnesses cannot exist. So today instead of worrying about where Michael’s blood sugar is at any given time, I told my mother in law that I’m probably not going to look at the diabetes app on my phone today but that she can contact me at any time today if she needs to and I’ll be glad to help her.  I’m choosing not to worry about the fever and instead just treat it and keep him comfortable.  I can’t change why he has a fever, so I shouldn’t worry about it. I am thankful for Michael’s appetite, even if it’s small.  I am thankful that he’s wanted to drink, which is so important. He has not had any ketones (which is an indicator that the blood is becoming acidic), so having no ketones is a positive thing. He has a safe place to be today where he feels comforted and cared for and can focus on getting rest. We’re off tomorrow, so that’s a positive thing to think about because I’ll be able to be with him through most of the day and take care of him. And ultimately, again, God cares for my children more than I can and He longs for them to be well and not in pain.  These temporary earthly sicknesses are a reminder of how sweet Heaven will be when we won’t be concerned or bothered by these things at all.  Choosing to focus on these events has certainly made my stress level go down and I sure want to keep this mentality moving forward.   I never want anyone to feel stressed by me anymore.  

One of the main reasons why I think Satan may have been targeting my house this week is because Aaron and I finally closed on 20+ acres of land!  We’ve been talking about buying land for YEARS and we’ve waited on this specific parcel to become available for 8 months before it was actually ready to buy.  Once we had the contract, we closed quickly and now we finally own this dream piece of property. (No house yet- we'll have to build one.) We are confident this is God’s will for us and I believe that’s why Satan is trying to steal our joy. He’s targeting my children’s health because he know that will make this mama bear angry and worried and stressed.  Maybe the phone call from the diabetes educator was all I needed to get myself back in line with how God wants me to live—focused on finishing the race well without getting bogged down by the stresses along the way.

If you made it to the end of this post, thank you! And whew! That was a long read!

Until Next Time,

Much Love, Reba