Noah's Police Car

This week, I'm gonna let Kyle be the writer and share his not-so-fun story of rolling down the river...

Rain. Rain! RAIN!!! I have never seen the rain this bad. Streets were flooded all over the place. Ok, so I was headed to a call at 222 N Lyerly St (for those of you familiar with Chattanooga) where there were children stuck in a house where the waters were rising into the house. En route to the call, I went through standing water at 900 N Orchard Knob Ave. As I went further south, I happened upon the newly formed (in the middle of the road) Lake North Orchard Knob. Being smart, I was not going to traverse the waters with my car. So, when I went to apply my brakes, nothing happened. I went on off into the "lake" and my car said, "Hasta Lavista, Popo!" As I was sitting in the lake waiting on the city tow truck to rescue me, I saw refrigerators, trash cans, and trees floating down the lake and hitting the front of my car. As the waters rose, I felt my vehicle begin to rock. I quickly got out of my car and tried to go to the hill over to the side. As I stood on the side of the hill watching the lake rise, I saw my car float about 50 feet up stream. The waters rose about a foot in about 5 minutes time. WOW! I was scared to death! I am safe and going home. I was almost washed away into the deep ditch and could have been hurt, but I was safe. Lesson learned: Do not attempt to do swift water rescue unless you are a fireman, Do not attempt to drive into water, Do not lose your brakes when approaching a lake, and Do not let your GPS drop off of the windshield into the water in the floor board of your car. Lessons learned and taken to heart. D2.........


All I can say is, THANK GOD he is alright. Unfortunately, our GPS did not survive this outing... =(

The best 5 Dollars and 90 Cents of My Life

Kids toys cost so much money-why is that?! They outgrow them just as fast as they do their clothes! I've been Craigslisting lately, trying to sell some of Zackie's old toys to replace with new, more age-appropriate ones, as well as some of my old Vera Bradley bags. However, I have had no luck yet. Sad. (Let me know if you might be interested!)

However, I have found some new toys for him that were MORE than quite a bargain. Ever since Zachary learned to grasp, he has loved balls. I mean, give this kid a ball to hold in each hand and he is happy. But now that he is walking and loves, and I mean LOVES playing outside, I wanted him to have a bigger ball he could play with out there and we could kick, bounce, and throw.

So a few weeks ago I begged Kyle to take a quick run to Wal-Mart with me to look for a ball, plus we needed to get gas in the car for in the morning. Well, while Kyle pumped the gas, I went inside to look for a ball and couldn't find one anywhere-what?! So, we came home without said ball, and late for Kyle to start Fantasy Football...boo-hoo, honey. ;)

So my wonderful Mother-in-law suggested we try the pharmacy stores in town. So while we were waiting to pick up our $5.00 Papa John's Pizza (YUMMY) I ran into Rite-Aid quickly, found a 3 dollar and some-odd-cents ball that was marked 50% off, and headed to the check-out. Already super excited I finally found a ball AND a great deal, I was even more excited that the ball was marked down even more and came to the total of 90 cents including tax. Instant wonderful new toy for Zackie!

So now you may be asking, what about the other 5 dollars? (Well, you probably aren't, but any-who...) Saturday my sister-in-law and I had planned to go outlet shopping in Dawsonville, Georgia (Actually, we had planned to go to Nashville to see Wicked, then those plans got butched due to ticket issues. Then we had planned to go shopping in Gatlingburg, but that got butched when we realized we would hit the crazy football traffic in Knoxville. So we settled on Dawsonville about 9:00 the night before. =) Anyway, Jamie picked me up not-so-bright, but very early Saturday morning to get a good start on the day. I mean, we were getting to go shop KID-FREE, potentially all day if desired. We had to make the most of our time. When I got in the car Jamie told me there was a yard-sale starting a few houses down and they had one of those Little Tike climbers with a slide and asked if I wanted to go look. We had been at her house the previous night and Zachary had taught himself to climb up the slide in about 15 minutes, so she knew I was wanting one.

I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask, but figured it would be more than I was wanting to spend that day (Hello-I was prepared to buy clothes, and lots of them! For Zachary, of course =) So we drove by and I rolled down my window and asked how much they wanted for it. And the lady said, "Oh, that thing? 5 bucks." SERIOUSLY?! Those things run like $130 at least brand new. So ignoring the fact that it was faded and dirty (who cares!) or that my husband was still asleep in bed, I pulled out a 5 dollar bill before anyone else could steal that deal! And then I immediately sent Kyle a text telling him he had some things to take care of when he woke up. =)

Let's just say, Zachary loves his new toy!

Peek-a-boo!

This keeps him pretty busy!

Wordless Wednesday

When God Fearing Women Get the Blues...

This is the story of my happy pills. Not sure that I'll even publish this post yet...but wanted to get it out there in writing. Guess if you're reading this, I gave in.


I've always wanted to be a Mom. I used to spend hours when I was little oohing and ahhing over the JC Penneys Catalog, deciding what I needed to purchase when I had my baby. You would think a 6 year old would have better things to do...Anyway, Kyle and I started trying to conceive about a year after we were married, with no luck. In fact, when I went off birth control, it totally screwed with my hormones, and I quit punctuating all together. Ok, I know-TMI. Needless to say, my body was not cooperating in the baby making progress and I was probably already chemically imbalanced at this point.


Then we moved back to Tennessee and were busy getting settled in to new life here. Apparently my body likes Tennessee better than Texas because "things" turned back "on" and whaddya know? A few months later I am holding 6 positive pregnancy tests. Ok, I lie. I didn't hold all 6 at once-but I did take 6 to believe it! We were so overjoyed, and understood that God's timing was best and we were so thankful that we were close to our families when this miracle was to enter our lives.


And then the fun came. And came and came. Remember how I had issues with hormones? Yeah, apparently the new baby hormones didn't agree with my body too much and I got sick. No, not morning sickness. All day, 9 months sickness. I tried very hard to be a happy (and grateful) pregnant person, but it was so hard when I spent most of my free time barfing. It eventually got so bad that I was hospitalized for fluids and started taking Zofran 3 times a day to ease the quese.


When Zachary was born, I finally quit puking-hah!-but I was very overwhelmed emotionally. As you will remember I mentioned here that the day I told my parents we were expecting, I also received some upsetting news about my Moms health. Then a month before Zachary came, Kyle graduated the Police Academy and we moved out of our apartment into a house (in the same week) meanwhile I was beginning a new job which I would be working part-time. Not just a new job, a new career. Same for Kyle, too. It was all a lot for me to take in, especially adjusting to a newborn at home on my own in the evenings while Kyle was at work.


I don't really know when it started getting bad. Obviously long before I realized it. But with Kyle's schedule, I didn't see him much and when I did, we were always tired. You'll remember our months of not sleeping here and here and I probably would've blogged about it more, but I was too tired to! Anyway, between sleep deprivation, not seeing my husband much, working part-time, nursing full-time, and all the life changes, I was quickly becoming depressed. They say when you get the "baby blues" if you're not feeling better by about 2 weeks of settling back at home to call your doctor. Well, I was fine during that time. I'd even re-read Brooke Sheilds book "Down Came the Rain" about her journey through post-partum depression. (I highly recommend it, too-great read!) But I think mine really started to come together sometime after Christmas (I don't know...maybe Kyle would disagree?) Anyway, I didn't feel a need to see my doctor after Zachary was born, suffice it to say.


Maybe it was around March when Kyle started asking me to go talk to my doctor, and see if he could help. I was very stubborn and embarrassed to do this (yes, I admit it!) and didn't call at first. I knew I was sad, but mainly because I felt so isolated, especially in the evenings because I was still not used to being on my own like that. I just really didn't see how taking medicine could replace adult conversation.


After we finally got Zachary sleeping through the night again, I was still feeling sad and so I reconsidered Kyle's offer to call and we made an appointment for the day before my birthday, also known as My Inbetween Day. We talked with my doctor and agreed that I was probably just dealing with all the big changes, especially the lack of adult converastion in my life, and he put me on a low-dosage of anti-depressants. Since then, Zachary has been sleeping well, Kyle's shift got changed to where he goes in later, so he is home longer and off every other weekend (which means I see him more) and I've gotten involved in some activities with Zachary and made some new friends around here. In other words, it's working and I'm happy.



Some days I think that if we lived in a small town like Henderson, it'd be easier to make friends and not feel as lonely in such a tight-knit, Christian atmosphere. I mean, my college years were some of the best of my life. But I'm also very happy we are in Chattanooga to stay, and that Zachary will grow up having a "hometown," something I am still trying to get the grasp of...but that's another blog in and of itself!