Lengthen Your Stride

I am organizing a 5K for the Raleigh NC Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as part of our Day of Service on April 25, 2008. You really should check it out here. It is a food drive to benefit the NC Central Food Bank. I'm really excited about it and am glad to be involved in such a great community event. It is another reason though, to explains my lack of posts lately. It has kept me very busy!

This Day of Service is being organized by the North America Southeast Area (NASE) of the LDS Church (it covers 10 states). You can check out what other areas are doing here. Each stake is encouraged to have a day of service to benefit their community. The LDS Church is well known for helping out in disasters and now members are being challenged to serve their neighbors in times other than emergencies.

I have also been assigned to work with the Public Affairs team of the NASE. I wrote my first press release this week. I haven't written for a newspaper in years. It was just the kick in the pants I needed to get back to writing. I have another press release in the works for this week and a newsletter for next week. They are keeping me busy. I'm flying to Orlando in March to teach a class on interviewing and writing press releases at a Public Affairs training conference with the rest of the NASE team. When they were telling me about the conference, I asked if I would be attending (I wanted to attend the classes) and the answer was "Yes, and this is the class you are TEACHING..." I laughed out loud thinking it was a joke at first but then as the Director of Public Affairs for NASE kept going on about the class I realized it wasn't! I'm lenghtening my stride and am amazed at all that I can accomplish with the Lord's help.

I'm a Minivan Momma but I Don't Like It!

I drive a minivan- well not this week- but that's getting ahead of myself. I don't like minivans. They just aren't my style but for several reasons it is the vehicle I'm forced to use.

Want to know why?

1. My husband is 6'9" - without shoes on. He doesn't fit in a lot of vehicles. We had a Honda Civic once upon a time (we were poor college students) and my husband's knees hugged the steering wheel and we kept having to jump start the battery because he would accidently turn on the headlights with his knees and not know it! He does fit in many minivans though.

2. I have four daughters. I have to have a car that will fit 6 comfortably.

3. Due to my husband's height and mine (I'm only 5'11") our twelve year old is over 5'8" already. We don't have small girls for their age and they are only going to get taller. I looked at some of the non-minivan vehicles with third row seats but none would fit our tall family for long.

4. I'm frugal. If you've read my penny pinching post, you already know that. I need a vehicle that gets good gas mileage and that isn't too expensive. I don't need a big car payment!

That's what brings me back to the real topic of this post. I had a minivan that was paid for... and I got in a fender-bender. Because of the age & mileage of my minivan, the repair value was more than 75% of the value of the minivan so the insurance decided not to repair but to give me the value of the vehicle instead. That meant I had to go car shopping! I hate car shopping because it only reminds me of #1-4 above!

Due to lack of competent communication from our insurance company, we thought we had the rental car for 30 days. That's only the car was being repaired, but since it was being totaled I had 5! I didn't know that before I decided to buy the MINIVAN that had to be shipped from Alabama (It was worth it- it has only 8K miles and was a fabulous price). My rental was returned and now I'm driving my husband's rust bucket.

When I say it's a rust bucket, I'm being all too serious and maybe a bit too kind.

-It is rusting away in several places, most noticeably on the rear passenger doorways near the back tires (I'm guessing due to salted roads where this car must have been driven and never washed).

-The driver side doorway handle broke. I have to open the door by reaching across from the passenger side or by reaching from the rear door (by all the rust).

-The lights on the dash work intermittently...when it's dark I can see outside the car because the headlights work but I can't always see inside the car, like how fast I'm going. I figured out how to turn them on inside yesterday though- if I flash my high beams the interior lights turn on for a while only to turn back off at some point so I am sure to blind someone as I try to see how fast I'm going.

-The gas gauge doesn't work. We know how much gas is in the car by resetting the trip odometer every time we fill up and use mileage to guess how long we can go before running out. -The rear windshield is not really attached anymore. The plastic brackets that once held it in place are broken and have quit doing their job.

-The dome light on the interior of the vehicle doesn't work when you open the car door. So that means at night I have to manually turn on the light (and hope it works because it doesn't always)so I can see where the ignition is so I can start the car and then manually turn it off before I go anywhere.

-It only seats 5. So we had to have our oldest sit in the hatchback/trunk area so we could all go to church this past Sunday. Good thing it is a very short drive to church! Hey- remember sitting in the back of a pickup truck? This wasn't much different. It's not something I'm proud of, but at least we went to church.

The good news is that the engine is fine. It stops and starts fine. It gets me where I need to go this week. I got an email that the minivan should be here this week (right before we are headed out of town so it will get a good test drive). The picture at the top is of the "new" minivan I will be using for the next several years. I made my husband promise me though that this is the last minivan I have to buy.

Biopsy Should Be a Four Letter Word!

It's been a while since I've posted anything and thought I should explain why. My life has always been a roller coaster but lately the ride has gotten a little wild!

Last month when I was at church I noticed my neck was hurting and thought a headache was coming on so I took some Excedrin and went back to class. The pain didn't improve and by the time church was over I was miserable (I'm really glad I stayed at church though because the Relief Society lesson was awesome and I got to sit with my best friend Megan who was visiting from Virginia). I had a huge knot in my shoulder and my neck was pulsing with pain. I took Aleve, Tylenol & Advil (rotating each every few hours) but it still hurt so bad I was in tears.

The next day I went to the Dr. and the diagnosis was that I had wrenched my shoulder and I was given a muscle relaxer- even though I told the Dr. that my neck hurt when I swallowed. Three days later my shoulder was great but my neck was worse. After I was brushed my teeth on Wednesday night I swallowed in front of the mirror and gasped at the lump I saw on my neck. The next day I saw the Dr. again and was sent for an ultrasound. It was a cyst of some kind on my thyroid and I had to have a biopsy the next day.

The Ear, Nose & Throat surgeon did the biopsy and said for me to call with the results on Tuesday evening. Those days waiting to find out if I had cancer were pretty stressful. I let my family know and asked for prayers. By this time the Dr. had prescribed some antibiotics because I had a fever too. The antibiotics worked and by Monday I was no longer on 800 mg. of ibuprofen. It snowed Tuesday and Wednesday and I didn't find out the results of my biopsy until a week after I had it done. It was benign! I was so grateful and know that prayers were heard. At my two week follow-up the Dr. was amazed at how small the biopsy had shrunk compared to how large it was previously.

I was relieved and told I have to keep an eye on it and have biannual ultrasounds. I thanked the Lord and was ready to move on. Then this Friday I got ANOTHER LUMP on my thyroid! I was having the same symptoms but the lump was on the other side of my thyroid. I called the ENT dr. and got antibiotics again. Sure enough, I felt better a day later this time because it didn't have as much time for the infection to spread. I don't know what is going on with my thyroid and am going to keep a close eye on it but am grateful for now that I don't have cancer and I don't have to have surgery!

Basketball Babes

I've been blessed to serve as the Coach of our Young Women's basketball team this year. We have a great group of girls. This is a photo of just a few of them - those that played this last Saturday. I want to share about what happened at our last game. #3 is Nikita. She has cerebal palsy and is a wonderful girl that I am blessed to know. Basketball is not an easy sport for many and is even harder when you have special physical differences. Nikita got out there and played hard. She tried her best and kept a good attitude.

The referees were great and let her start over again when she travelled. They brought tears to my eyes though when they called a "technical" foul at the end of the game and let her shoot free throws a few feet in front of the free throw line. There was no reason for the technical foul- they wanted to give her a chance to shoot without anyone on her. Both referees agreed to do it and explained to the other team's coach and it was great. No, Nikita didn't make the shots, but as you can tell from her smile in the photo- she loved it.

It was a great game and I'm proud of all the girls. They played hard. When Nikita was on the court it was harder for them and they could have won if Nikita hadn't played, but that wasn't the point. They are a team and worked together. I told the girls that ten years from now they won't remember if they won or lost the games but they would remember that Nikita got to take a shot.