Near & Dear to my Heart

The American Cancer Society's Relay for Life is coming to Yucaipa and I couldn't be more excited to be co-captaining a team with my mom. Last year I had to sit on the sidelines, since I was 8 1/2 months pregnant, but this year I am looking forward to being on Team Refiner's Fire. And I am even more thrilled that I get to walk along side my mom and dad, who both fought cancer and won! I can't believe both of my parents have had cancer and are both here to participate in the Relay for Life..what a blessing!! But I'm not just participating in honor of them, but also for those who are still battling cancer or have loss the battle. My friend Heidi's mom is currently fighting pancreatic cancer and that motivates me. As well, as all the people very close to me who have lost the fight to cancer: my grandma Myrtle, my grandpa Harry and our family friend Rudy, who just past away last year after battling leukemia the same time my mom was fighting lymphoma. Cancer is so horrible and I am so sick and tired of losing family and friends to it, so participating in this walk to very important to me. I would like to invite you all to come, hang out and have fun at Yucaipa Community Park on April 26. There is plenty to do with the family: food, vendors selling items to benefit the ACS and music. And if any of you would like to donate to this cause, please check out our team's link. http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RelayForLifeCaliforniaDivision?px=4934536&pg=personal&fr_id=5416 .

I would be surprised that any of you reading this have not been effected by cancer and lost someone close to you. Keep our team in prayer as we raise money to stop this horrible disease from claiming others we love. ~ Kin

Those 2 pictures are from last year's Relay for Life. The second one is of my parents with Rudy in the middle. His wife, Joan is the one with the camera.

High Pain Tolerance?

As some of you may know, I had a pretty awful Monday. I have had a "Franken~toe" (as my friend Jill calls it) for the past few years. My right big toe has had a fungus and has become ingrown and been very uncomfortable. I have been meaning to treat it for awhile now, but then I become pregnant and the treatment for fungus is pretty intense and you can not be pregnant or breast feeding while on it. I can't wear most shoes and I am in quite a bit of pain on and off, so I went to the doctor last week to see what my options were. He said removing it would be one option, since I couldn't go on the meds, they would remove it and then use some topical medication on it. So I made an appointment for this past Monday to have both my right big toe nail removed and part of my left big toe nail removed (it was becoming ingrown as well.) Oh and FYI, I believe going to get pedicures did it. Therefore I have stopped getting pedicures for almost 2 years now.
So I went in on Monday to get them removed. Now Steve has had one of his nails removed and told me that getting the shot was the worst part, so I didn't have much to worry about. He went with me (Esther stayed with my parents) and I am SO glad he did. It was some of the WORST pain I have ever experienced in my life....it's right up there with giving birth. They had to give me quite a few shots, and even though I was supposed to be throughly numbed, the pain was so intense. It took about 45 minutes and I will be honest, I cried the whole time. Now I consider myself to have a rather high pain tolerance, but the pain was OVERWHELMING!!! Not only did they have to remove the nail, but they also had to remove the fungus under the nail, which was the worse part. Needless to say, I only got the right toe done..I'm going to wait on the left. After all the crying and bleeding, we got in the car to go home and the pain was still so bad. It was a constant pain, but also every couple of minutes or so, this sharp needling pain would kick in and that would cause me to just cry out. The doctor gave me a prescription for Vicodin, which we filled ASAP. Anyway to sum up everything, I am still hurting. Of course the pain has lessened, but still exists. I have been trying to stay off my feet as much as possible, and Steve took the day off yesterday to wait on me (he's the best) and help out with Esther. I am hoping I will start to heal and feel better soon, because we still have things to do on our house.
And speaking of our house, the addition is DONE!! They just have to come back and finish up putting the tiles on the roof. But most everything is painted, the countertop is put in, the carpet and tile is installed. I can't believe it. We feel SO blessed to have all this extra space. We can all play on the floor and there is still room for the dogs and cats. Can't wait for y'all to see it!! I will post pictures when it's all decorated. ~ Kin

Saying bye-bye to the dust

Wow....things have been really happening around our house. Steve and I spent ALL weekend painting our new room (a burnt orange and light green..sounds odd but it's beautiful), they did the template for the countertop on Monday, the electrician did all the wiring, they put our new floor tile in on Wednesday and Thursday, and today they are putting the counter top in as well as having the carpet installed. What a whirlwind! And even though everything is getting wrapped up, I have been in a funk these last few days. Oh the dust!!! I can not even tell you how OVER the dust I am and how it just seems to never go away. I spent some of my time last weekend, sweeping and vaccuming, dusting and moping because I was so tired of Esther crawling around in drywall dust (and for those of you that have had construction done at your house, know that that kind of dust gets EVERYWHERE). So for about a day and a half, the floor and house was free of dust. Then when they torn off the old tile on our counter and cleaned the floor to put down the tile and it started again. This beautiful, snowy white dust (notice the sarcasm) is all over everything again. So after everyone leaves today (as of right now, my contractor and his asst., the countertop guys and the carpet guys are here), I am SO looking forward to FINALLY doing some serious cleaning and Esther will once again be free to crawl anywhere her heart leads, unless it's towards the cat food, which is a WHOLE other problem in itself. ~ Kin

The new view from our kitchen/dining room.


The view from our new family room into our kitchen.


The back of the house...we had a new patio cover
put in as well.