Meet Cameron

A year ago, Cameron was an eight year old little boy.   Looking at him, he didn't stand out in a crowd.   A good student that enjoyed spending time in the woods with grandpa, riding bikes with his friends and that lived for soccer.   Just an average ordinary eight year old.   April 2013 though, that all changed.   Cameron got sick.   At first, it was just a stomach bug, but instead of getting better, the days passed and Cameron grew sicker, until one night that full of life little boy was lying in a hospital bed, fighting for his life.   The diagnosis was quickly made, Cameron had Type 1 diabetes.   His blood sugar was at 1039...blood sugar ranges in the 90s is where it should have been.   Throughout the night, the numbers miraculously went down.  That morning brought new challenges to this little boy so full of life.   He began to learn about insulin, blood sugar, and was forced to become a math whiz, whether he wanted to or not.   He learned a new vocabulary of lantus shots and carb counts.   The doctors said he would be in the hospital for a week, but Cameron was not to be kept down that long.   He recovered enough and was sent home within a couple days.   He returned to the soccer field having not had to miss a single game.   But the normal life he had previously known was no longer his. Meals couldn't be skipped or delayed.   Snacks had to be timed, no longer consuming anything just because he was hungry.   He couldn't attend the after school program that he had gone to for years.   Birthday parties, or even just a night at a friends house involved a parent tagging along or extensive education of the friends parents that would care for him.    To make things even more complicated, in June Cameron was also diagnosed with Celiac disease, a disease where his body does not tolerate gluten.   So the breads, cakes, cookies and pasta that kids love became on a forbidden foods list.   There are alternatives, but it isn't easy.   And through it all, Cameron has continued to love soccer, do well in school (probably could do better than most high schoolers at math in their heads!) and just try to be as average of a kid as he can.   And he never complains, even when he can't have seconds, as everyone around him pigs out.   As he goes from feeling great to incredibly low blood sugar in a matter of minutes.   We all think it, but never hear Cameron say it, but it isn't fair.   

This May, the juvenile Diabetes Research foundation of the ozarks is holding a fundraising walk for a cure, to raise money to find a cure, not just management, for this cruel disease.   Will you support kids like Cameron by making a donation?  Because it's not just an inconvenience when you have diabetes, it's a roller coaster ride with the illness in charge.   It still takes lives of children.   

To make a donation, please go to walk.jdrf.org and search for team Cameron in missouri.   Cameron thanks you!

A million ideas, a million plans

I decided a few weeks back that it was time to put my sewing addiction into good use.   I decided to open an etsy shop, Lori's playtime pieces.   Since opening it, it has more or less sat dormant as I tried to decide what to make yet and dream of getting my house clean, a weekend with nothing to do, and a day to sew.   Patterns are drawn up, ideas as vivid as real pictures in my head.   Fabric strewn about, awaiting that first cut to be transformed into more than just fabric.   Tonight, I clean.   This weekend, I sew.   Projects include doll clothes, Barbie swimsuits (as per request of a special little lady that received a Barbie cruise ship on Christmas), dress up dresses, I could go on and on.   There will be no shortage of projects.   

I have also spent the week researching various homeschool curriculums.  The decision has been made, we will homeschool!   Exciting, a bit scary, and so much more.   I do worry about the social aspects, but have vowed to get her involved in a few activities so that she has friends...and she is already showing that friendships are made during church activities.   If finances permit, we will also be signing her up for gymnastics this fall...she wants so badly to tumble across the floor....although if she takes after her mother, the term tumbling may not be the graceful maneuvers of a talented gymnast, but the feet flailing, crashing to the ground at unpredictable intervals, tumbles of a person filed with the grace of God, but no other type of grace.    Maybe, just maybe though, she will be a successful gymnast.

So, shall I do American girl, baby alive, build a bear, Barbie, or cabbage patch clothes first?   If only work didn't interfere!

New year, new life to the blog

2014.... The year I am really going to do it, the year I return to blogging.   I started this blog 6 years ago, when blogs were new, unheard of almost, and I wanted to document some very important changes in my life.    Six years later, that important change is 5 years old, and has definitely changed my life.    I gave up a good paying 40 hour per week job to start operating a daycare.   I have dusted off my sewing machine and have begun making dresses, backpacks to carry dolls, doll clothes, teddy bears and almost anything else I can think of.   I have discovered the sacred moments of time to myself.   This is short, somewhat of a test, to see if t it will work on this device or if I am going to have to blog elsewhere.   Maybe without two snoring children on my arms.   :-)   the photo is a recent project for my daughter and her doll.

Preparations

I used to blog faithfully, then, well, life happened.   But my need to write, to express myself is still there. Starting in January, I plan to start blogging regularly again, as life is poised to throw some great challenges and momentous occasions my way.  

Letter to my high school self

This is something I've been thinking about writing for a couple years, since my friend, "the park wife" did similar and challenged others to do the same.http://www.theparkwife.com/2011/01/22/letter-to-my-high-school-self/  Well, and there is that song that will inevitably be stuck in my head all day now.   Better late than never though, right?    So here goes, a letter to myself at my high school graduation.

Dear Lori,

Looking back on the last 15 years there are so many things I want to say.   You are walking across the stage tonight, receiving your high school diploma.   This is important, it will open doors for you.   But that ceremony isn't as scary as everyone seems to make you think.   After tonight, your life will change.   In just a few months you will start college at Southwest Missouri State.   This is where you will really start developing into you.   Your roommate will have almost nothing in common with you...and will spend the next several years being your best friend.   Share dreams with her, although I have to warn you, this is a friendship that will fade.   That's ok, you will learn from it and grow.   Your sophomore year, that strangely quiet girl that moves in will eventually be the first friend you call with the biggest news of your life, and the friend you tell all the little things to, as well.    Don't be afraid to be yourself, you'll overcome that incredible shyness quickly realizing that the world isn't quite as cruel and hateful as high school was.

Tonight, enjoy hanging out with your high school friends.   It's the last time you'll ever do that.   And take time this summer to hang out with Granny and Pa.   Those stories of the past...ask them to share and right them down.   Years from now, you'll want to do a living history presentation of the great depression and those stories would add so much to it.   Hug them, love them, because they will be gone before you know it...and ask for roast, fried chicken and cinnamon roll making lessons...simple treats that will take years to get and then you still won't be sure its right.

When you get to college and your professors ask what you want to do with your degree, don't hesitate to decide on interpretation.   You've been shy all your life but will discover in college that it is being in front of an audience that makes you happy.   Go for it.   You'll be offered a job in Wyoming after graduation, trust me, you couldnt handle the winters and it is ok to decline.   When offered the seasonal job in Arkansas, realize that this is where God has placed you.   You'll learn many inter iew tips in college, you'll forget them before every interview.  Its ok, trust that instinct.    God will lead you to a mountain in Arkansas.  I know you think you are all grown up now, but you aren't.  This is where you will really grow up.   You'll have your heart broken, you'll stand in awe at an Easter Sunrise service, you'll draw close to God.   These are the easiest years of your life.   Stop occassionally, smell the flowers.

As you go out on your own, realize your parents have given you wings to fly.  Don't forget that as you make your mark, they'll never stop supporting you, even when you ask for a flying squirrel costume, nowhere near halloween.   That support will be there through everything.   Plan less, do more.   Don't ever let the weather cancel your plans...just allow extra time for backpacking trips in a heavy rain.   Double check those packs before every trip, although the memories you'll make when Dad brings extra tents are worth him carrying the extra pounds a few miles.  Take more pictures, they tell the story of you.  And when you get that call that Dad was just in a bad accident, just stop and pray.  He'll make it, but will live with pain every day.

I want you to realize those dreams of where you'll be in ten years, fifteen years from now will shape you, but that isn't where you will be.   Your dreams will change with you.  You will get the opportunity to do a presentation at a national conference, and you'll feel like you've conquered the world.   A year later you will put the rest of those carer dreams on hold.  Don't worry, those little eyes watching your every move, those little feet following you around everywhere...that will be what begins shaping your everyday dreams.   Go with it.  Make new dreams.  

And back to that dating thing.   Don't stress over it.  You'll be helping your best friend pack up and she'll convince you to sign up on a dating website.   You'll think she's crazy but a year later you will be walking down the aisle, becoming Mrs to the one person that will be your everything.    Cherish these times.

If I could tell you to change something that I know you will do, it would be to listen more, take notes.   You will find that "family" means more than that group of people you were born to be with.   Family will be a tight knit group sitting in a Bible study in Yellowstone.   Family will be the friends shoulders you cry on when your grandparents pass away.  Family will be that amazing group of "big brothers" you get in Arkansas.  

Above all else, serve God.   It's ok to cry when you are sitting in those services where you just feel God.  And always wear coveralls to the sunrise service at Stout's point.   Take notes during the girls Bible study..the newly married and new moms will teach you many things you will often refer to in those early days of marriage and parenthood.

Your life will be fun, you will meet many amazing people, and yes, even you will find your soul-mate.   Enjoy it.  Photograph it.   Love it.

From fifteen years in the future,
Lori

The mountain

Ok, gonna try this again, after its refused to work so many times....


There are many moments in life that shape us into who we are.   I just ran across a quote on Pinterest that I hadn't seen in years.   A man named John Muir once said,  "The mountain is calling, and I must go."   This started my mind working and thinking about those moments in life that are gone so quickly.

Travel back in time to 2002.   Fresh out of college, I landed my dream job at an amazing state park in central Arkansas, forever after referred to as "my" mountain.   I was grown up, on my wn, ready to conquer the world.   Looking back, wow, I was soooo very young.   I spent four years pouring my heart and sole into that mountain, learning about all the flowers, wildlife, and history that my young mind was so eager to soak up.    Today, I don't remember the number associated with the CCC, the details of the forest fire that scarred the mountain.   I probably couldnt tell you the names of half the flowers.   But looking at myself, who I am, my mountain was so very influential.   I look back fondly at the Sunday evening Bible studies, and am curious about where the rest of the group is now.   I look at our girls nights and girls Bible studies, longing for that innocent comraderie once again.   And yes, I remember the best job a girl could ever hope for, and would only give up for the man of my dreams.  And I look back and see how much I grew in those four short years, and how much I've grown since.

Its those rough spots when I have to struggle with myself to keep from driving 400 miles back to my mountain, to walk 1 1/2 mikes down a trail to sit on a rock near a small trickling stream, because it's there that I learned so much about life.    I faced the fear of actually being able to give a presentation, came up with ideas for programs and wrote newspaper articles in my head.   But that rock is also where I sat, battling those feelings of being alone,and sitting on that rock, I truly felt God.   I conquered broken hearts, wondering how I'd survive when my best friend moved, and found God was there when, for the only time in my life, I fell in love.   It was on this rock, tears streaming down my face, that I truly grew up.   I changed from a child into an adult, with all the triumphs, tears and testing that goes along with that.  

Sometimes life gets the best of me, and I miss that rock so much my heart aches.   And I want to take my little girl to that rock, so that she can sit, just be still, and be with God, far from any modern conveniences, but so close at the same time.  Its in these moments, I can truly appreciate the simple words of Muir, "The mountain is calling, and I must go".  Because as a wife and mommy, I've never found another rock, and sometimes I need time completely alone, just me and God.

Just testing

I havent posted in months because I get aggravated because it wont let me post from my tablet and that is what I use the most.   So just seeing if it wants to be agreeable now.....