Stories at Hand

I just completed a class at Jessica Sprague.com. It was about writing your personal history. When I first signed up, I thought it was going to be a digiscrapping class. It was more of a hybrid class as we had to build our prompt book using digital supplies she gave us. We created a prompt book that we then use to write out our personal history. Some of the prompts are things like "What was your first pet?" . You are suppose to read the prompt, then let your words flow. She encourages the use of things like blogs and digital journals, but I like the idea of it being in my handwriting. I am doing all of mine by hand. I may do some digitally on here if I run out of things to write about. I doubt that will happen with how busy my kids and life keep me, but you never know. I need to just work on posting here more frequently.

Today is Thanksgiving. We went to Emily's and spent the afternoon with Stan's family like we normally do. It was loud, but fun. The food was good, but I did my best to get just a little bit of the things I wanted and not waste the calories on anything I didn't love. I started eating some pumpkin cake, but it had a strange after taste by the time I got less than half way through, so I quit eating it. I made pies from scratch this year. I usually let Emily make the pies, but Andrew really wanted to make a pumpkin pie from scratch. We made it from an actual pumpkin and not from canned pumpkin. It was so good. It was much better than any pumpkin pie I have ever had. I will be making my pies like this from now on.

I feel totally blessed right now in my life. My MS has been under control, I'm feeling pretty good these days. Stan's mom is home from the hospital. Stan has a great job. Everyone is healthy and strong. I have a nice home, even though it is small. I have amazing children and a wonderful husband. We aren't hungry or cold. We have clothes. Most importantly, we have the gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives. I know that my Heavenly Father loves me and cares about me and my family. I have SO much to be thankful for. Life is good, even when it is hard, it is good.

I did find out today that Stan's family will be going their own way this year for Christmas. Emily and Frank will be going to Colorado, Ben and Wendy won't be doing Christmas (that is all we were told) and I'm not sure what Richard and Michelle will be doing. It will be the first time since Stan and I have been married that we haven't had most of his family together on Christmas. I'm sure we will go to his mom's house, but otherwise, it will be a nice Christmas at home. It will be kind of nice not to have to worry about going anywhere. I'll give Grace and Jacob their present early. I'll check with Michelle and find out what they are doing. I may give Faith and Samantha their present early also.

I have a ton of scrapbooking layouts to finish up this week. I have to have an entire book worths done by Friday. I won't elaborate on it any more than that, but I have about 15 layouts to get done. Monday, Rachael and Andrew both have physicals. Rachael's is in the morning and Andrew's is in the afternoon. Tuesday is our normal crazy day, with Grace being here in the morning, then Andrew has OT, then dance and scouts. Wednesday I should be able to get a lot done, and probably on Thursday also. Friday Rachael has to get a barium swallow done and I have Weight Watchers. Rachael is having trouble swallowing at times. She will be eating, then she will gag on her food and then feel like she is going to vomit. We have her on reflux medication, but it isn't getting better. She is going to see a pediatric gastro, but her appointment isn't until the end of January.

I had to go see the gastro 2 weeks ago. For about 4 months, I keep feeling like I am going to throw up. I had an EGD done on Monday (a camera down into my stomach) and they found that my stomach is not emptying like it should and I have a red, inflammed area on my esophagus. Aparently, I have been having reflux without the heart burn sensation. I used to have heart burn all the time, but it has been years, like since I was pregnant with Jeremy, since I felt like that. I have added 2 more medications to my growing pile of pills I swallow each and every day.

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and that we can all remember those things we have to be thankful for all year round.