Tasha

Everyone has a best friend; if you're lucky you have several. I met my best friend when I was 12, her name is Tasha. It all started on the school bus. I had just moved into a new neighborhood and when I got on the school bus for the first time no one would let me sit down Without saying anything Tasha moved over and offered me a seat.

Turned out that Tasha was adopted by her aunt and uncle when she was 8. She was outspoken, crass, sometimes downright rude. I LOVED it. We were complete opposites. I was every bit of a girly girl and she was just as much of a tomboy. I talked to her about fashion and she talked to me about the correct and most efficient way to cut 2 acres of grass in no time. Our friendship was instantaneous.

When we were 15 and 16 our moms (her aunt) stood at the terminal waiting for our plane to leave...we were headed to Orlando for Spring Break. I don't know what our parents were thinking but they trusted us...together. I truly think that they believed that we were the best parts of each other...how could we get into trouble? LOL! Ohhhh....the things we did. Memories...

She held my hand as I applied to colleges. I think she hoped and prayed harder than I did for those acceptance letters. I am a year old than Tasha so I was off to college and she was a senior in high school.  As I was driving home from class one night I got a call from Tasha."I'm pregnant" is what she said. Totally shocked but well versed in pretending not to be, I said, "we'll get through it." A senior in high school working a pretty full part-time job and pregnant. Tasha's always been a fighter that way. When she is determined, there is no stopping her. So it was my turn to do the hand holding. Mackenzie Moffit was born on July 12, 2002, a month and a couple weeks after Tasha graduated high school.

Me, Tasha, and Kenzie at Jordan's 1st Birthday Party

I admire her. She has done everything in her power to provide a fantastic life for "Kenzie." Although Kenzie's dad is a very active part in her life, Tasha has raised her on her own. There were no miracle grandparents there to save the day when she needed a babysitter or was too sick to take care of Kenzie. She "put on her big girl panties" and got the job done.

We've been through it all together...relationships, heartbreak, heartache, pregnancies, weddings, you name it, we've lived it. She's my "person," no questions asked! She's my biggest cheerleader, my worst critic, and the sister that I wished that I'd had.

Some of My Favorites!

 

What I've Learned in Two Years

Two years ago I was praying that I would "hurry up and have this baby." I had a perfect pregnancy, little weight gain, minimal ankle swelling, not too much back pain. My last month of pregnancy was the worst. Insomnia kicked in and I was awake while the world was sleeping-every night. On the phone with my grandmother one day, I told her that I was having trouble sleeping at night and was exhausted during the day. After a lot of "grandmother-ly" advice she said "your insomnia is just God's way of preparing you for the baby."



Jordan will be two on February 5th. Those two years have flown by so fast. I compiled a list of things that I have learned in these short (and long) two years.

1. My grandmother was right; God was preparing me. Jordan slept through the night for 4 weeks and then stopped. Months 3-9 are a blur because Ashish and I were coasting through parenthood with one eye open and the other one closed.
2. One smile from Jordan does make everything better. Something tells me that he may use his super power (his smile) against me one day.
3. Children will make and break your marriage...at the same time. Between being sleep deprived, frustrated with a colicky baby, working (Ashish), and trying to maintain your house; emotions run high, things are said, and feelings get hurt. It's unfortunate but it's true-at least at our house.
4. Grandparents are your best and worst friends. Jordan has awesome grandparents, on both sides. We have never had to find a babysitter, all of the grandparents are more than willing to rearrange their schedules to accommodate ours.
5. No matter how good your diapers are...boys have a way of peeing out of the top side of a diaper. Weird...it's just weird.
6. Babies sense when they are wearing really nice clothes...they typically spit up, poop, or pee all over them.
7. The list could go on but I will leave off with this...when I married Ashish, I didn't think that I could love another person more...then I had Jordan. He is the best thing that has happened to me and to us.

"No one sad it would be easy, they just said that it would be worth it."

Turning 28

My birthday started out as any other Friday. Usually Jordan is wide awake at 8:00 in the morning but for some reason, he ALWAYS wants to sleep in on Fridays. So, as usual, I have to wake him up and get his little buns going. Usually I like for him to be awake at 7:45 so that he has some time to wake up and get his brain rolling. Unfortunately, this never happens on Fridays; we literally hit the ground running. Breakfast, milk, clothes, diapers, backpack-wait...did I write a check for the tuition? Jordan only goes to school one day a week-on Fridays. Out the door by 8:45, at school by 9:00...it's a task every Friday.

Once I dropped Jordan off at school I had to go by the dentist office. I have to get a root canal...yuck. Actually, the root canal isn't the yucky part. The yucky part is the amount of money that we will have to pay out of pocket AFTER insurance. Who knew that dental work was so expensive? Up until now, I had only had a cavity. Nothing major. How does one go from paying for a cavity (which insurance usually covered) to paying for a root canal? I visit the dentist regularly? Was there no warning that this was going to happen? OK, enough of my soapbox. From the dentist I got a car wash-can't drive around in a dirty car on your birthday! It must have been my lucky day because the owner of the car wash gave me a free car wash because it was my birthday. YES! From the car wash I had to go to the eye doctor-a new eye doctor. Apparently my old eye doctor doesn't accept my vision insurance anymore. Good grief-me and "insurance" were in an argument today...it's obvious that I was losing. I WAS losing until I got to the new eye doctor and the receptionist told me that my contacts would be FREE! Best.Words. EVER. And, to top it all off, the insurance company was going to cover the full price of a new pair of COACH eyeglasses (all who know me, know how much this means to me-not the glasses, but the fact that they are COACH). It was my lucky day...so I thought.

This entry is long and I am babbling on but I haven't gotten to the very best part yet. When my husband came home, he came bearing gifts!

Beautiful roses

AND...thanks to Ashish, my in-laws, and parents...I'm a proud new owner of a NIKON D3100. Here are some of the pictures taken with my new camera.



Surrounded by family and close friends, I celebrated my 28th birthday. God is good, all the time, every time, right on time.

A Funky Funk

When I was little we were never allowed to say "funky." To be honest, I don't know why; it wasn't like it was a bad word or anything. In my mother's eyes, saying that something is "funky" (unless referring to music) was just as bad as calling someone a "liar" or as bad as saying "what" or "huh" instead of "yes" or "ma'am" when your name was called. Sorry mom but today I am in a FUNKY funk.

Disclaimer:  If you came to my blog looking for inspiration, stop reading now. This post will be absurd. Completely absurd. I'm a crazy girl and I have LOTS of crazy girl moments.

I don't really know why I am in this funk really. Maybe it's the fact that I am turning 28 in 3 days. 28...wow, it feels like I was just 25, no, it's not 30...but it's 28. Where have the years gone. In three short years I have gotten married, quit my job, and had a baby. Maybe that's it...maybe it's that Jordan will be 2, yes, 2 in two weeks. My little baby isn't a little baby anymore. He is talking up a storm, throwing balls (sometimes at people), walking up the stairs with no hands...the list goes on. I am proud of the child he has become.

The more I think about it my funk resembles that of a 5 year old tantrum-sans the tears. I want to be left alone with my book, my Chipotle, and my remote control. Ha-wouldn't that be nice.

Well, that funk was nice...break is over...Jordan needs a bath.

Happy New Year!

I need to start this blog with one simple phrase..."God is good...all the time, everytime, right on time."

We survived the holidays! I say "survived" because Jordan is the only grandchild on both sides of the family and I was SURE that we were going to end up with a bunch of....well...CRAP this year. My parents went over board, as they always do...a motorized train, DVD player for the car, LeapFrogs, Leap Pads, clothes...too much stuff. Ashish's parents did what they are best at...giving money to support Jordan's college fund. We (Ashish and I) are truly blessed to have such fantastic grandparents for Jordan. There isn't a day that goes by that I am not thanking God for them.

JORDAN'S NEW BIKE



I was really excited about New Year's Eve. We planned to host our first New Year's Eve Party with our new friends (and some old). That morning, I sat on my couch thinking about all of the things that happened in 2010. We continued to have a happy healthy baby...well, he was growing into a toddler...FAST...but he was still a baby to me. In the midst of a recession. when so many people were out of a job, Ashish's job was uneffected. My dad had a heart scare that turned out to be nothing but a fluke. The greatest thing that happened to Ashish and I was finding a small group at church. I can't begin to describe how this group of 24 people, 12 couples, has influenced our lives. All of the people in this group make us want to be better people. Just when we are feeling down on our luck, we met a couple, Chris and Ali Davis, that had a faith like no other. Chris was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma shortly after their son, Copper, was born. After hearing their story, and how they handled life on a daily basis, I definitely had a new appreciation for Ashish. Their love for each other was undeniable, it was infectious actually. I learned a little bit from each one of those couples. God pushed us to join th group and I am SO glad that he did.

The women and men of our "not so small" Small Group, minus a couple of people!

Faith, Hope, and Love...

"When you put faith, hope and love together, you can raise positive kids in a negative world."-Zig Zigler

There aren't enough books in the world to describe how hard it is to raise a child. I'm not talking about how expensive it is or how time consuming it is. I'm talking about how thought, emotion, and soul consuming it is. I think that every parent goes into parenthood with a list of "things my child won't do." "My child WILL NOT have a temper tantrum in the middle of a restaurant." Let me just tell you, my child has done that...several times. "I would never give him sugar for breakfast." I think he had fruit loops this morning. We put all of these expectations on ourselves.So I ask myself, "what makes a "good" parent?" Does a "good" parent only buy really nice clothes? Does a "good" parent only feed their child organic food? Hmmm...

Ashish and I were in Sam's one day, Jordan may have been six months old. We walked past a woman that worked there, she was handing out food samples and I remember the smile on her face. We took our food sample and moved on but I couldn't get the look on her face out of my head. So we were on our merry way, strolling through Sam's; as we rounded the corner to the frozen food aisle, the woman with the big smile was standing there. What happened next will forever be in my mind. The woman said: "I can see that you two are great parents because your baby is happy; and happiness is all that children need. I smiled so big because it was so nice to see two young people purposely trying to make their family happy." What an amazing compliment. Amazing because at 6 months, Jordan wasn't sleeping through the night which means that Ashish and I weren't getting a good nights sleep. I hadn't had a good nights sleep since January...this was August. I loved that an outsider could look into our little family and see happiness. From that point on, I was no longer striving to be a "good" parent, happiness makes my family PERFECT!



He's Gone, That's It

Cancer is such a scary thing; it doesn’t discriminate. I guess that I can say that I’ve been lucky to have lived 26 years without cancer affecting my life. All of that changed when I turned 26. My cousin, June, was diagnosed with kidney cancer on my 26^th birthday. He went in complaining about a slight pain in his belly, above his belly button. Two

days later, the doctor called back with the news that it was cancer. Shocked, that’s an understatement. I have a very large family on my mom’s side; my grandmother has 10 children, 14 grandchildren, and 13 great grandchildren (no get together is ever small). I wouldn’t say that we are all close but it seems that in times of trouble, the family bands together. A month after the cancer diagnoses June went in to have the kidney removed. With hands together, fingers crossed, and heads bowed everyone prayed that this would be the answer to our prayers. Hopefully the doctors would remove the kidney and the cancer would be gone. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. When the doctors opened him up for surgery that only helped the cancer spread, something NO ONE could have seen coming, more shocking news. June kept a positive attitude; he knew that cancer wouldn’t beat him. He wasn’t going out without a fight. And fight, he did.

 For the next year and 5 months he fought, his parents fought. I can’t tell this story without mentioning how vigilant my Uncle Johnny and Aunt Deena were. They were experiencing something that no parent should have to experience. In June of 2010 he was told by the doctors that there wasn’t anything else that could be done. The cancer was spreading so rapidly that it couldn’t be stopped. He was told that he only had two weeks left to live. The family was preparing for the worst, making travel arrangements, calling other friends and family to notify them. Remember I said he was a fighter? Two weeks came and went and he was still fighting, cracking jokes, making people laugh. A month came and went, and while he wasn’t well, he was still living. Everyone had high hopes for a recovery. We were sure that the doctors didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. Two weeks…yeah right, it’s been 2 months, 3 months.  I was able to take a trip to Michigan to visit him and I am so glad that I did. Although, he didn’t look like himself, his personality was the same. When he wanted to make a point, he MADE a point and the day that I saw him, his point was about Almond Joy. He didn’t understand how you can have those Almond Joy pieces (a new candy that is out) without having almonds in them. “It just doesn’t make sense, that’s false advertisement,” he said. Month 3 took us into October; the cancer was spreading more rapidly than ever.  June was going blind; the cancer had spread to his brain. The call came at 10:15pm, the words were simple,  “he’s gone, that’s it.”  On Saturday, November 6, 2010, June lost his battle with cancer at the age of 38.

Johnny Golden Jr. (June)
1/19/72-11/6/10

Aside from my grandfather dying when I was 13, I had never experienced death so close to me. I didn’t know how to react or what to say. The only thing that I could think of was, “I can’t imagine what his parents are going through.” I am a mother now and the thought of losing my son is unfathomable to me. I do believe that God knows what he is doing and at the end of the day, he is in control.

Psalm 34:18
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit
Psalm 22:24
For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.