Breakdown.

Lots to catch up on so I will be brief.....maybe! 

A couple of weeks ago on a Friday I was stressing about some things coming up in life.  I prayed and cried and told Heavenly Father I needed some extra help.  Saturday I had a total breakdown.  Joe had been gone for a few weeks, I was working a ton, managing everything at home, prepping and stressing about Sierra moving home.  I was driving to Springfield -2 and a half hours away for a guard competition- and Sierra called me to tell me she was headed to the ER again for pain in her knee.  She had another small bit of news as well that I won't share, as it isn't a big deal, but that day it sent me over the edge I had been hanging onto for dear life.  I drove and cried and called my poor boy because my mom didn't answer and with Joe gone HD was the next go to.  He was at the gym but dutifully answered the phone and listened to me cry and told me everything would be alright.  He is a great kid.  I drove some more, cried some more and arrived at the school feeling vulnerable but better.  Saw Haylee right before they competed and she told me she wasn't going to compete because her knee was hurting her too badly. (It was mysteriously swollen a few days before that).  She felt terrible I had driven all that way but there was nothing to do about it at that point. I told her I didn't mind and found a seat to watch the team.  But seriously when a person is mid-breakdown and said person has driven a long way to see a child perform and said child sits out this competion- it was like rubbing salt in an open wound.  I was brave and smiled and waved at my beautiful girl so she would know it was ok. A lady sitting next to me said something extra nice and I almost started bawling again.  After the performance I hugged Haylee and told her I would see her at home.  Drove the 2 and a half hours back crying and talking to a dear friend and my mom on the way home and prayed a lot.  It was a rough afternoon.  I got home in time to go to the adult session of stake conference but I had zero desire to go.  However, I thought if I wanted the Lord to come to me then I had to go to Him also and He was going to be at stake conference.  I decided the first priesthood holder I saw that I knew I would ask for a blessing.  I cried a little more and off I went.  (Goodness,I was a mess!) thankfully I saw a member of my bishopric pretty quickly after arriving and he gave me a beautiful and helpful blessing.  I knew that I would be alright and I would have enough strength to handle the trials and stresses in my life.  Before I got my blessing I wondered why I had had this kind of day.  Why, when I asked Heavenly Father for help, had things gotten seemingly worse?  I realized then that I had been prompted many times in the last several weeks to get a blessing but I had not done it. Heavenly Father had some things he needed to tell me but I had not taken the step he had prompted me to take.  Thus I got a push over a cliff so I would seek Him.  Lesson learned!  :) I cried a little more that night and in the days since but I feel peaceful about the direction things are going and I know I am not alone.  I am so thankful that I know of the love my Father in Heaven has for me.  That he wants to bless me and communicate with me clearly in the way that I would easily understand.  I should also add that I am thankful for the priesthood power that has been restored to the earth and for the men who worthily hold it and use it.  

L.O.V.E.

How cute are these two?  I believe love is in the air for these cuties.  I am thankful that my boy has found a girl that makes him so happy.  HD and Kassi have been dating since November-ish and they are just happy as can be.  It has been fun to watch this process as a mom.  I love HD coming to me for counsel, taking that in, and then making decisions on his own using his own judgement. He is a smart boy. And a lucky one to have such a wonderful girl in his life.  No engagement........YET!  😍. We will see what the future holds. It is an exciting time.  

If they get married I want a shot exactly like this on their wedding day.  It's my fave!  Kass looks so happy. Love them both. 

Yo-yo

That is my weight in a nutshell.  I reduce  my calorie intake to 1200-1400 calories a day and I lose weight.  I do that for months then fall off the wagon somewhere and can't get back on for the life of me.  I hate it.  The whole truth of the matter is that I am HAPPY.  Happy with who I am, happy with my family relationships, happy with the friendships I have, and I have the best husband in the entire world that loves me no matter what. All of this attributes to me not having the motivation to change.  Why fix it if it ain't broke right? The only wrench in this fabulous life is that I want to be HEALTHY.  I need to be healthy so I can live a long time and be with the people I love most for as long as possible.  I also feel the need to be healthy so that I can take care of Sierra.  Currently her health is spiraling out of control.  We are moving her home so we can get her stabilized and seeing the right docs.  Her poor body isn't going to hold together well and she is going to need some extra care from time to time. I want to be able to relieve that burden for her and the burden that will inevitably be placed on her dear sweet husband (when he comes along on his white horse) 😉. I need to be healthier.  I need to take better care of this precious gift of a body that I have been given.  Side note: it was a good idea to blog about this because I am feeling called to repentance right this moment for the abuse I have put this poor body through -not eating well and not exercising does not do a body good. It is time to get back on the wagon of healthy eating.  It is possible.  I can do it. I have to do it.  I weighed myself this morning and it was not pretty.  I did ok today but not fab.  Need to go grocery shopping and get good food in the fridge and pantry.  Wish me luck friends.  I don't want to be a yo-yo anymore.  Although I do think this swirly one is pretty.  

Have to make another note of Haylee and my time together today.  We went out to dinner tonight and laughed and talked.  Took a quick trip to Walmart with more laughing.  On the way home "Billie Jean" came on the radio (Missouri radio is really awesome) and she and I danced and sang with the windows down all the way home.  I sure love that girl and the time I get to spend with her.  

I got her this dress today at the thrift shop:

Work the good, and teeny bit, of bad

The good:  I love my job!  LOVE IT!  Who knew I would enjoy working on teeth so much.  People always say "it would gross me out to put my hands in someone's mouth!" Before I was a dental assistant I might have said that too.  But I LOVE IT!!  I enjoy the patients and the office I work in and the day literally flies by.  The pace is fast but the work isn't too physically demanding.  It is a great fit for me!  I am so happy to have been given the opportunity (literally given! -no application needed).  On top of all that I get to be a PRN which means I just fill in when they need me.  I am thankful every time I go to work to be learning so much and enjoying it. Plus they pay me to be there! Bonus!  I also get an hour and a half for lunch which is amazing.  Today I got to talk to Lana for an hour of that. It was the BEST!  How blessed I am to have served with she and Becky in the Suitland Stake.  And now the teeny bit of bad for today.  I am lucky that it doesn't happen often (because I don't work everyday) but tonight Haylee gave me her schedule of events for next week's "Fine Arts Night" at the middle school.  She is in drama and they have been rehearsing a play for a couple of months. They are doing the Seussified version of Romeo and Juliet.  And the play is at 4:30.  I don't get off work until 5!  Hopefully I will be able to leave a bit early but if our schedule is full there is no way I can go.  With patients in the chair, ya gotta be there.  (I just made that up, I am hilarious) I will be so sad if I have to miss it.  Thankfully Grandpa and Grandma Huhmann are coming so they will get to see her perform for sure but I feel terrible especially since Joe is out of town.  I am not a mom who misses things.  Such a bummer!  I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will work out. I am also very thankful that Haylee understands if it doesn't.  

In other news:  it rained cats and dogs today which is nice because we haven't had much moisture through the winter and my allegries have been giving me heck this week.  The rain should help keep the pollen down for a few days. I have never had allergies before but I am allergic to Missouri it seems.  Lame.  Thankful for Allegra!  :) side note: my knees were hurting all afternoon and this evening.  Is this a side effect from the rain?  Apparently my body thinks it is 87 years old.  So rude. 

Last news to report, I love my bathtub!  I am an -almost daily -bath taker and the tub at this house is a big soaker tub with jets!  Double bonus there is a window right above the tub. On cool nights I open the window (while hiding my nakey bits of course!!! Lol) and enjoy a warm bubble bath with some fresh cool air.  It is heaven!!!  This is my nightly view:

Ahhhhh.....I could stay in here for hours.  

Night friends! 

Girl time

Joe is away for work for a bit so Haylee and I are having some girl time.  We had a great weekend and are enjoying hanging out and spoiling ourselves a bit.  Friday night I had a Camp meeting from 5-11 so Haylee was home alone.  She enjoyed it though and watched Netflix and played video games.  The camp meeting was fun I enjoyed visiting with Mary (1st counselor in the stake YW) and planning with the YCLs. It is wonderful to feel like a part of the stake here as I loved that so much when we lived in Maryland. I remember going to things after we first moved here and being so sad I didn't know anyone, especially the young women.  I missed "my girls" and hated not knowing these cute new girls at all.  As I arrived at the meeting the other night I was greeted by several excited shouts of  "Hi Sister Huhmann!" And a couple hugs from those cute girls whose names I now know.  What a difference a year makes! I am thankful for the love of this new group. Saturday Haylee had guard practice from 9-1.  I did some tv watching and some organizing.  It is a great feeling to have things in order.  We have very few Saturday's free -maybe one!- in the next six or seven weeks so we declared this Saturday our DOF (Day of Fub).  I picked Haylee up and we got lunch at Sonic.  We came home and did a few more things then headed out to the soccer fields as it was a gorgeous 68 degrees.  We both had headaches but it was so nice to be out in the sunshine.  Then we got dinner from McDonald's came home and watched some of the Harry Potter marathon on tv, then decided to take ourselves to the movies (see? Definite spoiling going on).  We saw  Zootopia.  It was really cute and we both enjoyed it a lot.  We picked up a few Sunday necessities at Walmart and came home. Today I had a ward conference to attend in Odessa.  I think this makes the sixth one so far? We have two more to go but not until May.  I had not been to the Odessa building before. It was a beautiful chapel and the drive there was beautiful country.  We even came across the biggest house we had ever seen!  Haylee and I both decided we could really get on board with country living if we could live there.  Next time I'll take a picture!  The conference was wonderful and uplifting and I felt the spirit so strongly during a special musical number of "His Hands" I had never heard the song before and was overcome with emotion listening to the words.  The other parts of the meeting went well, as did our training afterwards.  It is always nice to meet with the sisters that serve the young women and counsel together with them.  Driving home I realized I had forgotten to buy butter yesterday and everything we had planned on making needed butter.  Instead of breaking the sabbath I had Haylee text Amy and see if they had some butter we could borrow, she said "yes!" Saving the day!  The rest of Sunday we spent laying around and enjoying the day relaxing.  I had a worse headache today than yesterday but it seems to be gone tonight.  Hopeful that tomorrow is a headache free day.  I'll try to add some more pics to my next post.  :) 

ER

Today was a mostly nice day.  Most days are mostly nice I suppose.  This morning Haylee had a dental check up and cleaning.  

She had an awesome dental assistant to polish her teeth.  She thought I did "ok" but she didn't like me flossing her teeth at all and reported my mean flossing to Dr.Heath who said "hey, that's her job!" Haylee got braces 4-5 months ago. Right before she got them she needed her last two baby teeth pulled.  Those guys were STUCK!   At her last dental appt she had a panoramic X-ray done and it showed her adult k-9 teeth pointing inward toward her middle top teeth.  I took another pano today to see if we had made any progress 

This one is from six months ago 

And this one from today:

Sadly they haven't moved at all.  She had about an 80% chance of needing oral surgery on the one on the left because it overlapped #9 so badly.  The right side may come down yet but I would say her chance of needing oral surgery went up to about 95% today's. I like to think positively but ya gotta keep it real. The rest of her visit was uneventful although she was not an easy patient. ;) again KIR. 

None of this tooth news has to do with my post title which is ER.  Just wanted to document Sierra's issues for myself.  She is on her way to the ER -again- this is her 6th trip in less than four weeks.  She has kidney stones.  Those are all the reasons for the ER visits.  She throws up from the pain and after two or three times puking in a hour she goes in, they give her morphine and she goes home.  It is a process she should not have to repeat six times but sadly is how things have gone.  On the upside tonight she was throwing up because of knee pain.  That's not the upside lol. The upside is that hopefully they can put her knee back in place while she is there for her kidney stone pain which started after all the throwing up. Super fun.  Her poor body is just breaking down.  Not sure what to do.  Not sure when we wave the white flag.  Well I actually do know that.  We have been waving it for a few weeks.  This is hard. 

One year later.....

A whole year has passed since that last post.  So many emotions then.  We still miss Maryland.  A piece of our hearts will always be there.  We don't even miss the area that much, just our friends and best neighbors.  One year.  365 days since I blogged.  I don't know if I can cover a year in one post but I would like to record my feelings on the happenings of the last year.  March was hard, Joe was my only friend besides sweet Amy who probably thought I was a little whiney and kind of a downer at the beginning of our friendship.  Lol.  Thankfully she hung in there!  :) I was looking for jobs and not finding anything.  Joe was concerned about my sad-ish state and encouraged me to get out of the house and meet some people.  I felt like I had tried at church but hadn't gotten very far.  So I decided to volunteer at the only place I knew of which was the thrift shop on base. That decision changed my whole last year!  :) I met new friends and had something meaningful to fill my time. Mostly I met new friends.  What a blessing!  I became a co-chair (think assistant manager but without the pay) ha ha!  I am on the thrift shop board and also sit on the spouses club board to represent the thrift shop from time to time.  These 4-5 women that I work with at the shop have become some of my dearest friends here.  I am so thankful for them!!!  In April I was called to be the ward camp director and was then given a stake assignment to be the head YCL counselor at camp.  SO FUN!!!  Loved all the ladies and girls I got to know through that time of serving the Lord.  July brought a new job!  I landed my dream job as a newborn photographer with a company called Mom365.  It was a dream!  Photography and tiny babies?!?  The best!  One drawback I had to work every other weekend at least Saturday and  Some Sunday's though I never had to miss church it wasn't my fave.  After not working for 14 years it was hard to get over not having my weekends full of family time. Got called to work in nursery at church wasn't thrilled but was happy to serve where the Lord asked me to, ended up loving it.  Those littles are so dang cute! 

  August we traveled back to Maryland to pick HD up from his mission!!!!  So fun to see our friends and to get to hug my sweet boy!  He was as awesome as ever and it was so near to hear his stories and to have him speak fluent Portuguese for us.  I am sure he felt a bit like a circus act when he first came home.  :p. 

He and I at the airport

Our family back together! 

Same sense of humor came back from the jungle.  :)

We spent two and a half weeks with the kids and enjoyed every minute before they were both back off to college.  Darn successful people anyway.  Lame.  Haylee also started 8th grade and joined a million activities.  Ok only like 4 but it seems like a lot. September was just school as normal busy volunteering and working.  Fun high school football games and loving small town life!  At the end of September Haylee and I were in sacrament meeting and imagine my surprise when they are reorganizing the stake YW presidency and they read my name over the pulpit asking the ward to sustain me as the 2nd counselor in the stake YW!  I almost fell over.  They had motioned for me to stand and I did and I tried to stay composed and not freak out.  When I sat down Haylee said "you didn't even tell me!" I told her "news flash they didn't tell me either!"  She thought it was hysterical and could not stop her shoulders from shaking with silent laughter.  I was just shaking!  Lol.  I had no idea what to do.  Do I tell someone? Do I need to tell them now that I had no idea? Did they read the wrong name? A hundred thoughts raced through my mind as I tried to focus on the sacrament. During the sacrament the stake high counselor and one of the stake presidency members realized their mistake so they got up and explained to the congregation that I had not been formally extended the calling and then asked me if I could meet with them after sacrament meeting. That's when I realized they did mean to read my name and that they sustained me all across the stake that day!  It was a lesson in attending your meetings people can you imagine if I hadn't gone to church that day? No one would have known that I didn't know!  It was a unique experience for sure.  :). In October my friend Amy asked if I would like to come work for her and her hubby (out stake president and dentist) they needed a dental assistant that could fill in for sick people and when someone took maternity leave.  I said yes and then a few days later said no.  I felt I couldn't give my all to that job while working at the hospital and I wasn't ready to give up my baby job (it didn't really occur to me that I could).  In November Haylee made the winter guard team (flag spinning) and I realized if I was working on a Saturday I would miss her whole competition!  I am not a mom who misses things.  The dental office gig would be super part time and at most a Monday -Thursday 8-5 job.  Also, it was a "real" grown-up job!  They would train me and pay for me to get certified plus cover all of our dental costs not paid for by insurance!  Deal!  I have been working there since December and I LOVE IT!  Who knew I would love teeth? Crazy but it is such a great fit for me.  I love the work and the patients and my boss is pretty awesome too.  ;) 

December both kids came home for two weeks and my dad came to visit.  Joe's sisters were both at the farm Christmas Eve so we spent the day there.  We had a blast.  It was so great to have everyone here.  January was dental office work and guard competition for Haylee along with her landing the role of Juliets nurse in the school production of Romeo and Juliet.  She is really excelling here and I love the things she is involved in. Look at the young women in our ward!! 

There are so dang many!  It is awesome! Our ward is huge and definitely feels like our family now.  Joe's closest friend just happens to the the stake president (yes also my boss) which is an awesome thing.  We love the Heath's and are so thankful they befriended us when we moved here!  (I tried to get their middle kiddo hooked up with HD but that smart girl decided to serve a mission!) :) February is going well.  I went home for my moms retirement.  She flew for Delta for 45 years!!!!  Amazing.  She loved her job and it was hard for her to leave but it was time.  She felt peaceful about her decision and it was wonderful to celebrate with her.  

Getting her queen robe, crown, flowers and scepter.  Rick even rented a red carpet and a limo!!  

Mom with her sisters

So much fun!  Sierra has had a rough February but I won't go into that in this post. To sum that up 5 trips to the ER in 3 weeks with kidney stones, partially dislocated jaw, and a hard scary fall on some ice.  It has been TOUGH.  Through it all though we have both seen the tender mercies of the Lord and we are so thankful!!!  

I was able to be at one ER visit with her. Poor girl. This kid spends a lot of time at the docs.

Today Haylee competed in the Science Olympiad regional tournament.  She competed in three events.  Picture This -didn't place, Mission Possible -she had to build a Ruth Goldberg? Machine. She placed 4th and will compete in state and her third event was Reach for the Stars and she took FIRST! -she will compete at state in that event too!  We were so proud of her!!!!  She loves science Olympiad and works really hard.  

Ok friends you are caught up.  We'll sort of, this is the best it's going to get!  :) maybe I'll keep up on this now and maybe I won't.  My hope is I will.  I need to document things better.  Hugs to you all! 

Two quick happy pics to end: 

D and sis while I was in Utah last weekend.