Wintertime! and 7 years....

Winter arrived yesterday and is continuing into today... It's only the 2nd or 3rd time in 24 years of living in Portland that we've had a white Christmas. No snow actually fell today but it never thawed so yesterdays snow, sleet, freezing rain stuck around. So glad Erika has her pickup! It allowed her to get around so we saw them yesterday. Tomorrow (hopefully) they'll be here again as well as Bobbie. It's been much too long since I saw my mother-in-law! I hear she has a pretty neat golden dog.

Tomorrow is 7 years since Dave left. I'm thankful that it has brought home the fact that you never completely know what is actually going on in someones life. Even those that your close to. Sometimes there's struggles within them that nothing is said about. Maybe hinted at but not actually addressed. One day there will be answers. We just hope that it's not 20 years from now! :)

Also, I found out the my kidney just dumps a lot of protein. It's functioning just fine according to the doctor. If the numbers were to get to a 1000 then she'd be worried and they aren't that high! I knew there was high protein, just wasn't aware of the actual numbers. Whew!!!! Does explain me going to things that have high protein.

Snow before the freezing rain

Pippy was quite intrigued with Erika. The girls were napping so he showed up. :)

Scarlet doing her front roll

Teagan is so flexible! 

Rhododendron nicely iced 

Half way decent amount of ice build up

My back yard

Rosemary iced

This is cool. Silver dollar plants drop their seed pods leaving the circle intact so I have ice circles!

Tonight... Road kind of thawed but is a sheet of ice again.

Another life journey

I've never had a really serious medical issue. There was the fifth disease in my early 30's but I wouldn't classify that as serious even though my neck couldn't turn for months. And it triggered arthritis, but that hasn't bothered me much at all over the years. But this last month I decided to try for a different life insurance company. They give tests to see where you are health wise. Blood tests came back fine but urine test not so much. I've always had high protein in urine but they've never figured out why. But this time the numbers were WAY beyond normal, even for me. Microalbumin/Creatinine should be 21 max, it was 264 and the retest a month later was 313, and the Protein/Creatinine should be 200 max and it was 617. YIKES! So I've been referred to a kidney specialist. The doctor is guesstimating that kidney function has dropped 20% this last year. I'm pretty sure diabetes related is off the table since I'm just on the cusp of being pre-diabetic, hypertension is off the table since my blood pressure is if anything opposite (It averages 100/70), life insurance company tests the white blood cell counts so I'd think cancer is off the table since that was fine... So my guess is some autoimmune issue is going on since there's a fair amount of autoimmune issues in the family. Not medication related either since I take no medication.

So I'm going to begin my Reliv journey to see if that will help. It helped bring my iron down a few years ago. So lets see if it can heal whatever is going on with my kidneys. Reliv has been known to help numerous things that are big issues, from cancer to diabetes, to..... It really is some amazing stuff. I have a horrible tendency to not take it as I should but now that there's something serious going on... I do believe I'll be much more diligent! We'll keep fingers crossed and I will keep track of my journey through this on this blog.

I am VERY thankful for that urge to try another Life Insurance company and thus it got caught!

Musings....

Dave has really been on my mind. Next month hits the seven year mark of his disappearing. It's hard to believe that it's been that long. I often wonder how he's doing, what he's doing, where he's at. It's amazing how fast seven years can fly. That first year was the longest year of my life. The second was quicker and now they just fly right by! I wonder if that has happened for Dave. One thing I'm thankful for is the help of my Father, the assurance that in the end all will be as it should be, whatever that may be. We do hope that one day Dave will show up. That we'll know some closure. That we'll get the assurance that he's okay. I'm often asked about what my reaction will be. To be completely honest I have no clue. I'm sure there will be hurt and maybe some anger but I can say at this point that the anger hasn't been there. After all, we don't know his side. I suspect some things but that's it.

When all is said and done it has allowed us to understand more of what others go through. We had a pretty protected life. Life experiences allow us to grow and be more compassionate no matter how old we are. And I'm on to another life experience. :(  I'll cover that in my next blog post.

If you see this Dave, we think of you often and hope that you're doing okay. You'll know when the time is right to come back into our lives. Please follow that feeling and don't think any of us will turn our back on you! That WON'T happen.

Absolutely wonderful vacation!

I was gone last week and went to see Christina & Linda for a week. It was beyond wonderful! And the weather was absolutely perfect! Perfect timing for the rain too! Sitting in the airport to leave it started to rain.

Stayed the first night at Lewis's. They used to live in Sandy so it was wonderful to see them again after many years! Went up the back way to Victor on Hwy 89 instead of I-15 so saw lots of small towns. The picture with the town sign was really cool! We stayed in Victor for 3 days and went to the Tetons and Yellowstone from there. Got very lucky at Yellowstone and saw a fair amount of wildlife. Wasn't expecting to actually see a Grizzly or otters! We then headed to Idaho Falls and stayed at a couples place. Once again it being a small world was shown to be so very true! I knew her sister when I was growing up. Spent a couple of nights there and  headed back to Salt Lake City and back home. And it's so wonderful to once again find the same spirit so far from home in Sunday meeting.

Salt Lake

There's a railway causeway that separates the northern and southern portions of the lake. One side blue and the other violet. Kind of interesting.

Really like this sign!

So beautiful!

Lunch!!!

Gorgeous!

Tetons 

Just really like this picture!

Lots of Bison!

A couple of otter if you look closely!

Old Faithful!

Boiling mud pit.

Not sure what she heard but this elk was sure set on getting somewhere!

Just a tad close!

Grizzly bear according to some friends who saw this picture!

Leaving Yellowstone

Idaho side of Tetons.

Yikes....!!!!

I had blood tests done for life insurance... Probably didn't do me any good but at least I know my feeling of needing to start taking Reliv is correct! Those urine results are beyond scary. Blood test were okay, other then I'm still borderline diabetic, but that's actually been the case for a year or two. Sitting in front of a desk is taking it's toll. But I don't think it can fully explain those urine test results. :( Micro albumin and protein seem to be the problems. High limit of protein is 14.9 mg and I'm at 76 and it only gets worse.

Sigh... changes coming in diet. However I did figure out real recently that it's possible that my body dumps protein due to having MTHFR and with that the body doesn't do well in processing animal proteins. Since that's where most my protein comes from it's possible that could be part of the issue.

And not being able to have the 'fake sugars' limits the sweets! Mutter....  :)

Whew! (for now)

Well... one window was leaking pretty bad this last winter and a friend has been looking into it this Fall. He was afraid that the top window had issues that would cause the water to travel to the lower window but that appears to not be the issue (whew!). The board in between the windows needs replaced and the wood around the lower window needs replaced but the water is coming from somewhere to get there, question is where? It doesn't appear to be coming from the roof either, at this point, since the wood coming down from there has no dry rot. Quite the mystery. It'd sure be nice to figure it out before winter hits! It has been a year of house repairs. I think the painting is finally done as well! I got quite the lesson in the process. The post right outside the door needed painting, however, I had gotten so used to it that it took a while for it to register that paint was needed. What needs taken care of in my life that I'm blind to because it's been there for so long?

Got help with the lawn today too! Even got the edges trimmed. I'm pretty sure that hasn't been done in the front since Dave left. It looks amazing and it got done for an amazing price! :)

Timing can be an amazing thing!

I'm once again amazed on the timing of my Father! One client may very well go away if a phone call last night is any indication but today a newer client today asked me to take on more, which would cover what i'd lose and then some. I'm always thankful and amazed when this happens. We'll see what happens in the next couple of months! Also picked up a couple of small accounts this last month!

Scarlet turned 4 a few days ago. It's crazy how quickly time is passing! She is now taking her own sugars! But it's tough getting those sugars to be fairly steady. Growth spurts probably don't help. Taking into account all the food carbs and giving 'proper' insulin seems to cause the sugars to drop too much but other times it doesn't seem to be quite enough. It's quite frustrating! Teagan started kindergarten. It sounds like it's going fairly well. :) Thankful that she's in Corbett! It may actually be a couple of years before Scarlet starts school due to a birthday at the end of September instead of the beginning of September.

There's one more trip in the works this year. I'll head over to Idaho Falls to see Christina and get to go to Yellowstone for the first time! So excited!! Then probably no trips, except to Klamath, for 6 months! Kind have started to like this traveling! :) That could get a bit dangerous! lol!!!

Fall is definitely here and boy are we glad! The fires are pretty much done. There was a little bit of a flare up last week when the east wind kicked in. The temps shouldn't go above 80* again though so we should be good. Tomatoes are about done. There's some raspberries to pick but there's also quite a few molded ones due to the rain. :(  Got the painting done between the carport and house roof only to realize that the front of carport needs painting. Sigh!! Going to work on that tomorrow evening and then hopefully paint it Thursday. THEN painting will be done! :) The carport roof looks pretty awesome too! It should last for about a decade at least. In the next couple of years I can hopefully get the house roof done as well!

Mt Hood from Hwy 26

Mt Shasta from Klamath Falls

Scarlet's favorite book, Tweaty

Time with Auntie!

Who says a cat can't be trained! :) Pippy loves his treats!

The cat's wanted nothing to do with the vet taking their picture!

Love this picture of Mia!!

What got painted and a peak at the carport roof

Crazy fires this year made for awesome sunsets/rises!

Hope not to see this on the sign any time soon! Fire level one evacuations were three miles from us. That's smoke not clouds.

One more sun/smoke picture

Ash!

Family!

Auntie with Christina

First day of school!

More family :)

Pippy loves Auntie!