Whew.............. What a Week!

Have you ever had one of those weeks where you've had a foreboding feeling that there's something coming on the horizon? Well, I've been experiencing that feeling for a few weeks now, and I had gotten really good at pushing those feelings aside. Well, this week I got the answer. On Wednesday I got an email from my sil Gail telling me that they had to admit Mom to the hospital:( I guess she was having a lot of pain earlier in the week and then late Tuesday they noticed swelling in her feet. With her COPD that's never good so they took her to the emergency room. The Dr's spent hours trying to find a cause for her severe pain and taking x-rays of her chest and other things to try and figure out what was going on. The chest x-ray came back with what they thought looked like fluid in her lungs but I guess it wasn't a great picture because there was some question's later on that is could be lung cancer:/ Of course when that was brought up, we were stunned, but figuring the fact that she's 96 years old that there could always be that possibility. They figured that if is was cancer, that the cancer had spread to her bones so that was causing the pain in her shoulder and hip. Eventually the cancer diagnoses was eventually discarded after another set of x-rays and looking at everything else going on with her. The original diagnosis of heart failure was put back on the table along with the prognoses that she probably has about 4 months left. She has since been released from the hospital with good pain medication and with the start of getting her into "Hospice" care for the remainder of her time. Gail has a meeting with the hospice team on Monday their time, so I should be getting a whole bucket full of answers to a lot of questions we all still have late Monday or Tuesday Morning.

Now I'm in the process of making decisions of what I need to do and prepare for next. I'm thinking that I would like to fly over to the states to see her while she is still a bit well enough to hopefully remember me. With her dementia she doesn't always remember anyone in the family anymore. Most times she hasn't put together that Gail is Bruce's wife and thinks that she is "the help". So, I'm hoping that if I can at least have one more chance to see her and have her remember me just once that will be wonderful, but mostly maybe I can go over and just be able to help a bit with her care since Gail, Bruce and their family have taken care of it all. So once I get all the info and looking at everything I have going here we will talk about taking care of my travel plans. I'm grateful that my church calling will be taken care of and that I have people here willing to help with the family. The kids should be good with having the taxi taking them to and from school. The two older boys can take the bus to any of their extra activities such as tutoring and with Sheldon being here he can take care of Christian getting to the Vennerholms for his Thursday night tutoring. I will work hard with Christian to get him working on his seminary and have him keep a journal while I'm gone.

Life can change in a blink of an eye. We see it whenever there is a natural disaster that grips the whole world within a few minutes of total destruction. Granted I am not having to deal with the struggles as like those in Japan, but I have felt that I need to get my house in order lately, and have been fighting that urge and now with the prospects of having to leave for a few weeks wish I was farther along than I am. I know that no matter what everything will be fine, but I could be leaving with a little less stress if I just would have applied myself a little more;)

So now I will bid au-due and get a load of laundry in the washer so I can be that much closer to getting things a little more organized. I will also be making my list of things I wish I had here so that I can take care of that while I'm back in the states. Things that I want to work on for the rest of my time here in Europe and some of the things I wish I had on hand. I know there was a reason I was a pack rat and now I'm wishing I didn't get rid of a lot of things that the hubby said we'd never need again;) I don't have a Wal-Mart around the corner to get what I need:/ So................ I'm thinking my trip home might become very expensive?

So..........

THe last day that I wrote on this blog was the 28th of February:o Talk about getting off track:( Well, things here have been a little interesting and really, there are just some days that I don't feel like there's much to write about. I guess I should take a picture though to commemorate the day? We shall see;)

The first week of March I pretty much spent that whole week learning a primary song in Dutch. I really need to take more time every day to learnt he songs, or at least be a little more familiar with them. After thinking I had the song down I was practicing in front of Shel when he informed me that I had a lot of the words wrong:( I listened to the CD and wrote everything down the way they pronounced everything but he informed me that the CD had singers from different area than the area we live in:/ So Friday night he helped me re-learn the words I had wrong and that gave me one whole day to be ready for the moment of truth:( Thing is, I will probably never get the words completely right, but that isn't the most important. It's getting the children excited about learning the song's and being prepared for the program at the end of the year. THank goodness they are patient with me and i have another adult in there pronouncing the words the right way when we sing;) So my job now is to look for a few more songs besides the one's for the program, work on as many as I can then be familiar with them. I figure if I can sing the primary program songs with the children without any cheat sheets in front of me then I have come away with more than I can ever expect. I truly love being in primary. THe children are so much fun and they want to learn and be taught. They always have a smile for you and you can't help but enjoy your Sunday!

The second week of March we decided at the last minute to drive down to Ramstein and get a few days of shopping in:) The boys had Carnival off for the week and I know that they appreciated getting out of the Netherlands for a couple of days and getting to eat American food. We were lucky enough to get a room at Ramstein so to be close to the mall and other things, but there's always a part of me that doesn't like staying there at the TLF's. The beds there are some of the most uncomfortable I've stayed in and we always end up roasting even if the windows are open:/ No one really sleeps very well there. We are thinking from now on that we'll stay at Spang and drive the hour to Ramstein. It was nice to be able to just take our time to get up and enjoy the day not having to worry about a drive, but if you can't sleep well, the day is just horrible:/ Maybe we should look at other places to stay while down there. If it comes out to the same price, if you factor in the gas then it might be something we would like better.

Anyway, enough of the complaining. Like I said we bought the boys some shirts, and games and other thing, enjoyed the food court and Macaroni Grill and the boys even took in a movie at the theater. This was the first time we have been able to do that since they actually had something we hadn't seen yet;) I spent the time grocery shopping since I had to be back by 6 pm for a Presidency meeting, but that was ok. I would much rather spend that time walking through the Ramstein Commissary than watch a movie I wasn't really interested in. I love seeing the different things they have there and stock up on the things I know we can't get here.

We got home Friday evening at 5:30 pm. We rushed to get the car unpacked, packed up Renata's things and then she and I headed out. I dropped her off at her place and was only 15 minutes late for my meeting:/ Thank goodness they understood and we had a great meeting.

We ended up not doing too much Saturday and Sunday because everyone was tired from the trip down. The men in the house did wash and vacuum my car:) They did an awesome job! I spent the day trying to figure out a lesson for Jr primary, since I looked at my schedule wrong and thought i was teaching Sr primary:/ I eventually came up with a plan and we were good to go.

Now I need to be getting some work done around the house. The boys will be getting out of school early today. Actually in 40 minutes:( I still need to pay bills, get some more laundry going and just general cleaning. There's always something that needs to be done. I should also be working on a song for Sunday. We'll see how that goes once everyone comes home.

The sun is out:) It's a beautiful afternoon and I think I'll try and enjoy some of that today too! These kind of days are so few and far between here in the Netherlands;/ You usually drop everything you have planned because you don't want to miss out on a nice day here. The summer will be better, but I am so ready for Spring and want to take advantage of it while it's dry;) Tootles......