it is finished.

I mean, our condo is finished...we still have a tiny bit of touch-up painting to do, which I should hopefully be able to get done today. Everything else is done. Our windows are framed, our new carpet is in, the painting is finished, and all the door molding, and floor molding has been changed out. And, I think it looks awesome. Sorry the pictures are a little dark, but it's the best I could do working in Seattle in the winter. :)

From the living room, looking into the dining room/entry:

The living room (looking at the fireplace):

The dining room:

My new sewing area (in our bedroom):

I went on a little adventure to the Tri-Cities this past week, and had a blast visiting friends and family. I spent good time with mom & dad, and got to see several friends. I also spent lots of time on the couch, resting in the cleanliness. It was delightful. It was my grandparent's 57th wedding anniversary, and I was able to join them for dinner! Here are they are (at dinner):

I think the highlight was seeing my best friend, Aubrie, and her 3 kiddos. It's fun to see friends that have known you forever, and even though you're both pretty terrible at keeping at touch, you are caught right up the minute you see each other again. We giggled, laughed, and created lots of flower arrangements for Aubrie's sister's wedding. It was fabulous. The best part was going out to breakfast and catching up while surrounded by pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream. mmmm. :) Here we are at the wedding with Aubrie's youngest, Nathan:Now that I'm home, and everything is put away, there isn't a ton to do. I'm still going to bible study, and still leading a group of young life girls in bible study too. I'm finding that I'm more tired these days, but doing pretty well overall. I'm consistently keeping fluids down, and sometimes food is staying in too!

Hugs to everyone, brelin

disarray

The last couple of weeks, we've been working on beautifying our house. While I'm extremely thankful that my husband is "handy" and can work on all these projects without having to pay someone lavish amounts of money to correct them; I am also very ready to put the furniture back it's proper location.
We're working on wood-wrapping our windows, changing all the baseboards and doorframes, and we also got new carpeting. These are all things that we were hoping to do before we sell our house in the future... and I thought we should get them done now, so that we can enjoy them for a couple of years before we move. I took some "before" pictures, and I promise to take some "after" pictures--just as soon as there is an after. :)
The good part about all of these projects going on is that I've acquired lots of new skills: spackling wood baseboards, caulking everything all over the house, using a crow bar to pry the old baseboards from the wall, and other really helpful things.
The bad part is that sometime in the midst of this chaos, I also got really sick and quit keeping down fluids for 3-4 days. I landed myself back in the hospital IV therapy for several hours getting pumped full of fluids. Apparantly, they injected magic water, because since then I am keeping down fluids AND some food. Thank you, Jesus. :)
My tummy health has gotten a bit better since the IVs. I'm still vomiting every day, just not everything anymore. I started acupuncture again, which is helping with my intestines a bit as well. I also learned that I have a hairline fracture in my sacrum (lower back), so I've been wearing patches of lydocaine to numb them and that's been helping. I'm also supposed to start physical therapy, which will help also. I think I may have fractured it a year ago snowboarding, and I just keep aggravating it. Either that, or I hurt it this summer when I was learning to pop wheelies. Regardless, it will be nice when it doesn't hurt anymore. Oh, and I got my pre-cancerous spot removed on my back, and now have another 2-3" scar. Lovely. I get those stitches out on Friday. Although my health is in total disarray, I'm holding it together reasonably well mentally. Prayers are always welcome.
All I can say is that I can't wait for my house to be clean. Seriously.

Happy 2010!

Happy New Year to everyone!! :)

Since my last post, there has been a bit of a Christmas debacle. Marcus and I did join the Weakley family briefly to celebrate Christmas with them. We arrived on Christmas Eve, went to church with the whole family, and then went to bed. I woke up the next morning feeling okay, so I did a Pilates workout in the living room and took a shower to get ready. I had just finished my hair, and was watching a DVD with Grandma, when I was blinded with horrific pain. I made it to the bathroom, and ended up doubled over on the floor. Marcus came in and took me to the ER, where we spent 5+ hours getting sub-standard care. The nurses were amazing, but the doctor was terrible. Ugh.

We made it back to my parent's house, where we quickly opened presents, and then Marcus drove us back to Sammamish.

I stayed the next day with Jim and Carol, and my pain was better that day, but I spent the majority of time in bed and parked on the couch.

Since then, my pain has lessened, although I still have a pretty rough time at nights.... but I'm hanging in there. Marcus, however, is currently on muscle relaxants, and had to call in sick to work. He woke up several days ago with horrible neck and back pain, which has progressively gotten worse each morning. I forced him into the doctor's office yesterday, and they prescribed him some meds to hopefully relax his back/neck. He lovingly chides me about how he "never had stress in his life until he married me." Thus, I have been deemed the root cause of his current predicament. :) (I think he was just tired of me being in the spotlight.)

Last night, our friend Kristin rang in the New Year with us. We had phenomenal plans about going downtown, but with my health & Marcus' health being what it was, we decided to stick close to home. We toasted with sparkling cider at midnight, and then went to bed. There is a photo of the painkillers with the sparkling cider which I did not include in this post, but thought it captured the moment beautifully.

We're hoping that 2010 will be full of fun and adventure, and that miraculous healing will take place any minute! We're so thankful that we have a God who loves us so richly, and blesses us abundantly with friends and family like you.

Hugs and love to all of you!