Please Pray....

This whole house buying thing is really stressful.

I kept wondering why... in the beginning of the process things were going so smoothly. Well it's only towards the end, the crucial time when things get wild and crazy. Basically settlement was supposed to happen March 5th, then March 11th, then today.

NO SETTLEMENT. The loan company is being crazy, wanting proof of something they already have proof of. Everything else is set and ready to go. I have packed it all, I have cleaned the apartment from top to bottom waiting. I have to be out in a week. If I don't go to settlement by then I will have to figure out a temporary living situation. Which would suck.

Here's a list of reasons it would suck. *Bulleted*

• I'd have to move all my stuff twice. Once to my temporary location (storage, or an apt) then to the house.
• I'd have to figure out where the cats would go.
• I'd have to couch surf and put stuff in storage or get a short-term lease apartment.
• I'd be putting out more money I don't need to.
• I'd essentially be homeless.
• I'd be ticked off.

Here's a list of reason's I'd get over it:

• It'd be an adventure.
• I'd get over it.
• Sassy wants to stay in a hotel.

Whatever happens I know God will cover me. I know He's got it. I can't understand His plans and ideas. Who knows who I'd meet in that crazy homelessness process and who I'd be able to minister to or who would minister to me. I don't question His plans. I just follow them. But I'm really banking on us going to settlement as soon as possible, then we move as soon as possible, then I clean the old apartment and everything's great.

Sooooooooooooooooo pray for a girl, will ya???? :D

Sassy's birth.....DAY

Well The Sweet Sassinator is 11 today. What.the.heck??? :|

So you want a story? Would you like it in list-form? Do you have the stomach for it? Ok. Then read.

• I moved out at 18.
• I got knocked up by 19 and I was inexperienced in many areas of life, including diet and exercise.
• First of all to be pregnant at this age when I was on my way to moving to Philly with a friend and going to art school was devastating.
• I stayed behind. How else was I supposed to take care of this baby?
• Her dad stayed with me and we raised the baby together pretty happily for many years.
• Back to the story.
• After going to a pregnancy crisis center I didn't know what was going to happen or how.
• My parent's never raised me to eat healthy or exercise.
• They were "intellectuals". Reading all the time.
• They hated sports and I can't ever remember a time when I exercised as a child.
• I did take a little bit of volleyball and hap-ki-do when I was younger but I always gave up.
• So. As a 19yo girl I eat whatever I wanted and barely moved.
• Her dad didn't help the matter. He was 6'3" 285. A football player and big eater.
• We would get steak dinners for lunch everyday on my lunch break.
• I worked temp jobs while I was pregnant because I couldn't wait tables being a balloon like I was.
• I worked in downtown Baltimore as a lawyer's secretary.
• That was an adventure.
• I had such bad morning sickness for five months I would puke twice in the morning.
• So when I'd get ready to take the bus downtown Baltimore I'd throw up every morning right before the bus came and then again when I got to work. It was bad.
• I liked working downtown because I did get out and walk on my lunch break sometimes. To explore.
• Blah blah blah, long story short I moved to a bigger apartment when I was 8 months pregnant.
• I kept wanting to rearrange the furniture especially when pappa bear wasn't home.
• I was a week late. And was miserable. You can imagine.
• I decided to move the giant t.v. we had.
• Well that set off alarms and I went into labor.
• I had to call pappa bear home to take me to the hospital.
• By the time I get there I am about ready to go. NO EPIDURAL!
• What? Huh? Oh no.
• I didn't take any Lamaze classes or anything to prepare myself.
• And nothing could have prepared me for the pain of contractions.
• Holy cow. The worst pain you can imagine. It feels like your body is going to explode.
• So I'm tryin' to get this baby out and I'm not handling the pain so well. I wasn't "BREATHING"
• I finally get her head out. By this time I'm ready to die and I still have to get her body out.
• I am pushing and pushing and pushing but nothing.
• Her shoulders are too big and she's losing breath. She can't breathe.
• So the nurses are pushing on my belly like maniacs.
• Poking me in places they shouldn't be.
• Screaming at me to push. As if I am NOT pushing.
• She is turning purple.
• The doctor takes a knife and cuts me right down the middle. :|
• Apisiotomy.
• Ow. No numbing, nothing like that.
• They rip the baby out so fast.
• They take her and do little baby cpr or whatever they do to get her to breathe.
• I am dying. Like ready to die. And screaming (the whole time)
• My family is in full-tears not tears of happiness but tears of horror.
• So they finally get her breathing. Thank goodness.
• They finally start to stitch me up (37 stitches).
• I found out she is 10 pounds 7 ounces, 22 inches long. A small giant.
• The only problem with that is the numbing medicine wore off right in the middle.
• I can feel them stitching me. :| what.the.heck.
• So they had to numb me again.
• And I want to die again.
• So they wheel me into my room. No baby. And I sleep.
• Baby is going to be on oxygen and watch for most of the day.
• I sleep like you can't imagine.
• I wake up at 11:00 pm and I am finally able to see the baby.
• I didn't get to hold her after, nothing sweet like that.
• I get to hold her and she is looking at me saying, I'm hungry.
• Me too. So I ate some supper and she looked at me with envy. ;-)
• It was quiet and just us 3 at this time.
• Once I was awake the doctor comes in to talk to me.
• He tells me it is the worst delivery he has ever done.
• And he's an older guy. :|
• He then tells me that when he ripped out the baby he tore her brachial plexus nerve in her arm.
• Her arm is completely limp.
• It will require tons of therapy to recover it.
• :|
• Fast forward to when she's 6 and she's at Johns Hopkins hospital, getting tendon transfer surgery for her arm. Therapy didn't recover it.
• And her arm has and never will be right.
• So baby and I hang out and I feel the greatest love a person could possibly feel.
• Greater than a husband, a pet, your parents. Indescribable love.
• :D
• And today she is 5'3" and 11 years old.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SASSINATOR!!

An early celebration

For Sassy's soon-to-be-11th birthday.

You see we go to settlement on our house Thursday, March 11th. Sassy's 11th birthday. She's getting an awesome present if you ask me. A house! So the night of settlement Sassy and I will have a special night in the new house with air mattress and movies and gnocchi and meat sauce. Friday the 12th we clean the new house and move lamps, plants, my tv, things like that. Saturday the 13th we move! I was planning on having a little birthday thing for her on Sunday the 14th. But that is just too much. It is too stressful. So we had an early get-to-gether with just the family. A very small party. We went roller skating then back to Grandmom's for some pizza, cake, and presents. She was so sweet. :0)

I had some of the best laughs ever! We had a great time.

More snow pics..