Trying to Stay Positive

Last night we got a 6 month notice to move out of our lovely home. I’m beginning to feel a bit like Job these days. First my unborn baby is taken… now my home (which also houses our business)… What’s next? I feel like begging God not to take my other child and husband!

On March 10th I started a new job working night reception, and quite frankly I have too many balls in the air that I’m trying to juggle and I’m about to drop one (or more) of them. Between doing year end for the hair salon, putting in twice as many hours at work as I anticipated (for training), taking a foster parenting course one night a week (in the city which means yet another late night coming home), and now having to find a new home and move… yikes!

Usually I have The Plan when faced with life challenges, but The Plan right now is merely to get through today with my sanity. I’ve been through MUCH worse events of course, but I’m just feeling defeated today. If you have time to post something encouraging, maybe some hugs or prayers, this Organique Gal would appreciate it.

PS I’ve decided to abandon garden plans since I won’t be here to harvest it, so will be buying all my veggies from the local organic farm around the corner. Going to start bagging up all my lovely mulch to take where ever we end up moving, as soon my garlic is ready to harvest.

There’s a Bird on my Head and other Random News…

That’s our budgie, Fancy Pants, in the above picture. He’s grooming me because I’m growing my hair out and I’m starting to look a bit unkempt. I’m in that weird in-between place where it’s too long to stay out of my face, but too short to put up. I will persevere though… Isn’t Fancy Pants too cute? He’s such a friendly fellow. His new girlfriend Lucy is doing well, but we’ve had to keep them separated because she freaks Fancy Pants out. She’s a very bold gal and needs to stop nagging her man.

So… it’s been 16 days since the miscarriage fiasco where I ended up being transferred by land and sea to emergency for a d&c cause I was hemorrhaging… My blood work came back the next week showing low iron, but my thyroid is normal, thank God. I’ve been taking chlorella with floradix iron supplement together and eating lots of spinach, kale, and nettle to rebuild my blood and boost my iron levels.

After surgery my neck and shoulders were so knotted up and sore that I paid almost $80 for a *real* massage from a registered massage therapist, and when she was doing my neck and shoulders my lower back went out. A chiropractor told me last year that I have a degenerative spine which explains why this happens. Not fun. Lots of painful muscle spasms forcing me to rest, and I do stretches and spine rolls to get it back into alignment. The chiropractor won’t touch it.

The next day I was hired to start a new job working as night receptionist at a resort two nights a week, and they put me on 3 days a week to do my training. After my first 3 days of training (which largely entailed reading manuals) I was called in to do my first solo night shift because the regular gal was sick. I was a little nervous, but fortunately it was really dead that night, nothing happening, so other than being bored to tears I did just fine.

As you all know I had been on a 8 month healing cleanse before getting pregnant, which interrupted it about 2 months prematurely. I’m back on it now. The first 4 days of sugar and caffeine detox were a bit rough, big massive headaches and SOOOOOO tired, but I’m past the worst of it now. Didn’t help that I was working a new job while detoxing. One night I came home and told my family I was just going to lie down for a couple hours, and then didn’t wake up till 10:30 PM! I got up, ate dinner, watched TV till midnight and went back to sleep no problem. My body must have needed the rest.

Surgery and being hooked to an IV drip for 11 hours makes you really constipated apparently, and I’m proud to announce I’m finally having normal BMs again. I’m sure that’s partly from the colonix I’m doing, but whatever it is, I’ll take it. I’m generally a regular gal, and am not happy when things aren’t flowing normally.

Weight loss. This is my first week back on the healing cleanse, but I’ve been so busy with training at work that I haven’t had time to track my calories. I’ve eliminated all the foods I”m sensitive to: sugar, dairy, caffeine, wheat, soy, yeast, vinegar, citrus, hazelnuts, and carrots. I’m hoping for a good loss this week, but if not, at least maintaining my weight. Starting on Monday I’ll be tracking my cals again so there will be no excuse. The good news is that I’m just under the weight I was when I got pregnant, so other than the 3 months break from the cleanse and weight loss, I haven’t lost any footing here.

Last Tuesday night I started our 6 week foster parent training. This is step two in the process to becoming foster parents. I knew this was what I wanted to do, but the training is really solidifying that belief. I really love my assigned social worker too. She’s very down to earth and easy to talk to and I think we’re going to have a great long term working relationship. She’s one of the training facilitators as well, so it’s neat getting to know her in a more casual environment. Hopefully we’ll be able to start the home studies in April/May and have our first foster daughter with us before school starts in the fall.

Finding my Groove again…

My life was starting to centre around a new baby arriving in approximately 6 months and I’ve had to really adjust my focus the last couple of weeks. I opened a drawer yesterday to get my scissors and immediately noticed a couple little flannel newborn nighties I picked up at the thrift store and a little pair of tiny gap shoes my friend found for the new baby. I took them upstairs and put them away in a bin in storage, along with the three ring slings I scored at the local recycling depot. Closure.

Yesterday I got a letter from the BC Foster Care agency listing the upcoming dates for the foster care orientation classes we enrolled in last month. It’s part of the grueling long process to become approved foster parents. When I woke up this morning I felt a sense of excitement that I couldn’t place, and then I remembered we are going to have a new child in our home in about 6 months. It won’t be a newborn baby like we had hoped. It will be a hurting child who has experienced too much heart ache. It will be a girl. She’ll be around 5 or 6 years old. She’ll be a child to love and welcome into our home. It’s meant to be and our hearts are aching to meet our borrowed child.

March has come in like a lamb and my hands are itching to get into the garden dirt. Herbs and veggies, mulch and compost. Organic fresh produce. Oh joy! My pasty white winter skin is longing for the sun and fresh air. I have a long checklist of things to do… find some old wood to re-use in building garden beds… get a pile of dirt to plant seeds on top of my lasagna garden beds… source some mint shoots from friends and family… get some decent tomato cages… buy more seeds… find some wood chips to use as garden paths… dig up the miles of parsley taking over the herb bed… check my garlic shoots… transplant bulbs into the flower garden… figure out how to refill the whipper snipper thread and trim the grass in the garden area…

I called my grandma Jean today. She’s going to be 87 years old in July, and is still as spunky and spry as I remember her when I was a kid. I keep her updated on the news in our family out West, and she keeps me updated on the news on our family out East. Her and Grandpa have been married for 67 years. My grandpa will be turning 89 years old in two weeks, but suffered a severe stroke last year that has affected his speech and sight, and he was already mostly deaf, so she has become his full time round-the-clock caregiver. He used to love working in his wood shop, was a voracious reader, but now he’s no longer able to communicate, hates TV, and is unable to read due to his loss of sight. Grandma says they bought a treadmill and he walks numerous times throughout the day, winding down his final years, like a hamster on a wheel. All of their friends died many years ago now, and they are now living in a grandparent suite at my Aunt and Uncle’s house. Grandma wants to come visit me and experience our little island here, but can’t leave Grandpa. I pray that his – and her – suffering will end soon.

Jobs. I have had three different job opportunities present themselves to me over the past week. I didn’t actively seek any of them out, but all three came about through friends and family recommending me for the job! I’m a blessed girl. Praying that the one I really want works out. I’ll post more when I know more…

So… my life turned upside down on Wednesday and Thursday. Today it’s righting itself. Life is a funny, strange, hurtful, joyful, wonderful thing. One of my oldest (she’s not old, we’ve just known each other a long time) and dearest friends wrote me after I told her about the miscarriage and she said some very wise words, “one of the wonders of being older is you know that life is in cycles and when you have to experience the sad ones yourself it hurts, but with that knowledge you are able to carry on…” It certainly does…

Taking a Tax Break

Tax season deadlines are looming over me, so I’ve decided to take a break from blogging in order to get caught up (and avoid late fees!). If you need to contact me, leave a comment or send a message through the contact form and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.

Thanks for reading, and hopefully I’ll be back very soon!