Little Blessings

There have been times in my life when I've had the opportunity to do something nice for a complete stranger knowing I would never get anything in return. In all likelihood I would never see that person again in my life. People sometimes say "God bless you" in return, and I always tell them "He already has". I used to say that before the tornado. It was true then, and it's even more true today. God has blessed me so much. There's a lot of pain that goes with the road I've walked for the past 23 months, but there's also a lot of joy simply in being alive.

We all know the old saying "it's better to give than to receive", but I think when it comes to God we have it a lot better on the receiving end. If we stop and think about what we give to God compared to what He gives to us, well, I'll be the first one to say that I wouldn't want the tables reversed. God gives us so much more than we could ever give Him. He knows we fall short of deserving his blessings, but He loves us and still blesses us anyway. Some blessings seem bigger than others, but I guess that depends on how you look at it.

Take me for example. Weeks after the tornadoes we found two of our pets alive. I can't even describe the joy I felt when I saw each of them for the first time. Some people would see it as luck that two cats survived a tornado, but I was in that tornado and I know that finding them alive was a gift from God.

Then there was my shirt from the day I was born. Back then the hospital dressed all of the children in little shirts in the nursery - blue for boys, pink for girls. Weeks after the tornado when most of the debris had been cleared, on one of my random trips by the remains of our home, I walked up onto the foundation and there was that little shirt laying on the foundation as if someone had placed it there knowing I would come by for it. I don't know who found it. I don't know where they found it. I don't know how they knew to return it to our house. It's as if it just dropped out of Heaven. I had always planned on dressing my children, if we had any girls, in that shirt when they were born. Having it returned was a blessing, and I was able to dress our daughter in that shirt for pictures when she was a few days old.

A few nights ago, my husband and I went into our garage to look through some of our stuff that's been piled in there since we moved in. After the tornado we packed up the things we thought we could salvage. Of course it rained the night of the tornado and a lot of things were wet. We lost a lot of the things we originally packed up due to mold a few months later. We thought going through what was left would be hard on us so we've been putting it off. In the first box my husband opened he pulled out a little wooden dog pull toy that I had when I was a baby. Neither of us ever saw it after the tornado. Neither of us put it in that box. We don't know if someone else found it and put it in there. All we know is that it's suddenly back with us. I actually cried when he showed it to me. To have lost the toys from my childhood that I saved for my children, and then suddenly to have one of them back is indescribable. It may not be much to some people, but at that moment it was worth more than all of the money in the world.

I have been so blessed in my life. I will continue to try to help people when I can. I want others to know how good the little blessings in life can feel. It can be as simple as opening a door for someone. Even that act of kindness can brighten someone's day. You never know what road the person you are helping has walked in life, and one day you might find yourself walking that same road.

On a different note - my husband is training for his first marathon. He's running as part of Team in Training (TNT), and raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. He received a corporate sponsorship from Pitts and Zanaty Law Firm, so his fund raising goal has been met. However, several of his team members are still trying to meet their goal. If anyone would like to donate to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to help with cancer research and to help those who are fighting blood cancers please visit one of the pages below to donate online.

http://pages.teamintraining.org/al/flypig13/aryders18j
http://pages.teamintraining.org/al/flypig13/kpudelski
http://pages.teamintraining.org/al/flypig13/spewitt6by

The Spirit of Fear

I was reading the other night and the following verse popped out at me.

2 Timothy 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

I read and re-read that a few times. Wow. I think of all of the things in my life that have put so much fear in me over the last few years. I've dealt with a lot of anxiety since the first tornado. When your life gets completely turned upside down, for whatever reason and by whatever means, it's easy to worry and stress and fear things that are out of our control. It makes me think of my daughter. Last week, anytime she got close enough to something she would pull up to her knees. Now she's pulling up and standing. Earlier tonight she stood up in her crib. It made her smile and laugh. She wants to let go and that scares me. I don't want her to fall and get hurt. Amazing - I have fear that she'll get hurt, and she doesn't. She has no fear at the moment. She wants to pull up and let go, and she's not afraid to try.

Wouldn't it be great if we were all like that again? Wouldn't it be great if we could all be fearless when it comes to the things we really want in life. Sometimes the fear of failing keeps us on the sidelines. We convince ourselves that we can't do something, when really we've either convinced ourselves that we're going to fail so why bother or we're too afraid of what others will think if we do try and fail.

I can't swim. I've always said that. The truth is I can't say that I can't swim. I've never tried to learn how, so I don't know that I can't do it. I just don't know how to swim. It's the same with people who tell me that they can't run. Unless they've tried then they don't know that they can't run. I wonder how many amazing talents we all have that are hidden because we're too afraid of failure to give them a shot.

God didn't give us a spirit of fear. My daughter has shown that to me this week. I hope that one day I can lose the fear I've carried since the tornado. And maybe one day I'll learn to swim.

Living with PTSD - Part 2

I could also have titled this one - "Where's My Memory?". Apparently, from everything I've read, memory problems aren't an uncommon symptom for people who go through natural disasters and other traumatic events. The question I haven't seen the answer to is "do the memory problems go away?" So far mine haven't.

I'm very forgetful, though it's gotten a lot better. It's not the normal kind of forgetfulness. Normally when you forget something and someone mentions it, it jogs your memory. You just forgot about it. With me, someone mentions it and it doesn't jog my memory. For example Brandon would ask me to do something, and later he'd ask if I'd done it and I had no memory that I was even supposed to do it. It got to the point where I started having to write down anything important I was supposed to do.

There are parts of my life that I don't remember. I don't remember Christmas 2010. It was the last time I would ever celebrate Christmas at the house I grew up in, and it was the only Christmas we celebrated at our first house, and I have no memory of it.There are other things I don't remember, and I've come to the conclusion that those memories aren't coming back.

The annoying thing about my memory is that I've forgotten things I've known my whole life. Brandon and I play trivia in town once a week. We'll hear a question and I'll know the answer, but when I try to remember it, it's like I hit a brick wall in my brain. It's there, but I just can't get to it. I can't even remember the state capitals. We learned those in 8th grade, and on the day of the tornado I could have told you the capital of any state in the country. We were playing trivia one night and one of the questions was the state capital of Connecticut. I knew it. It was right there. I just couldn't get to it. I told Brandon that I would know it when I heard it. When the answer "Hartford" was announced, even though I've known the answer to that question for years, it drew a complete blank. I'd never heard of Hartford Connecticut. It' strange when you hear something that you know you've known for years and it doesn't even sound familiar. I recently had to relearn the state capitals, just because it bothered me to not know them anymore. I've been surprised at how hard it is to remember them now. In fact a lot of them weren't even familiar to me.

I also can't remember names when I meet new people. I'm horrible at it. By the time the conversation is over I've already forgotten. That's something that I'm working on, but I'll probably always struggle with it.

Maybe someday I'll get my memory back. It's coming up on two years soon so I'm pretty doubtful of that. Any chance of that probably disappeared when we went through the stress of the second tornado last March. Just know that if you see me and I tell you I don't remember something, it's not for lack of interest or for lack of trying. My mind just doesn't work like it used to.

Did Will Carter Find Niko? - The Adairsville Tornado Pictures That Brought Tears

I'm sure by now most people have heard about the EF3 that hit Adairsville Georgia on Wednesday, from the same system that came through here early Wednesday morning. I was looking at some of the pictures, trying to think about how I could help out, when I saw the pictures that bring tears to my eyes every time I see them. They are pictures of a 15 year old named Will Carter who came home from school to a destroyed house. In the photos he's looking for his dog named Niko (go to Google images and search "Will Carter and Niko"). I'm not one of those people who can see a photo like that and just forget about it. Maybe it's because I've stood where Will Carter has stood.

I've been on every side of the fence you can be on in that situation. I've stood there heartbroken next to a pile of rubble hoping my pets were okay while knowing inside that there was no way they could have survived. I've felt the pure joy of finding one of them alive, followed 24 hours later by the crushing pain of having to bury another one. I also have the open wound for the one we never found. There's no closure. I don't know if he lived or died, and it's hard not knowing.

Below I've added a picture that was taken by my coworker Greg just minutes after Daisy was pulled from the rubble on day 12 (that's my coworker Josh in the background who actually pulled Daisy from the rubble). I hope that Will Carter gets to experience that joy. Unfortunately, the cameras will move on pretty quickly, and I'll probably be left with a question that I'll never know the answer to - Did Will Carter ever find Niko??????

Living with PTSD - Part 1

There's a lot of awareness about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder these days. There are a lot of posts on Facebook urging people to remember those battling PTSD, but I've yet to see anyone step up and admit that they have it. No matter how much we struggle to help and understand the people living with it we can't escape the simple fact that there still seems to be a stigma around it. So I'll let you all in on something about my life - I'm living with PTSD.

I finally admitted that I needed help and I've been in counseling since November. In a way I was actually relieved to find out that's what it is because at least now I have an answer to all of the symptoms I've dealt with for almost 2 years. Mine isn't severe and doesn't require medication, and I hope that someday I'll be free from the disorder.

Let's take yesterday for example. We were at my parents' apartment and there was a movie on TV. In the movie a family was trying to make it through the wind outside to their cellar as a tornado was approaching. You could hear the wind as they sat down in the cellar waiting out the storm. When they came out everything was gone. I told myself that it was okay. I wasn't experiencing the storm - it was just on TV. There was no threat to my life. And for someone else that would have been enough. Not for me. I had a nightmare last night that I know was triggered from watching that scene.

In the nightmare I was walking through the house, only it wasn't the house we have in real live, and the tornado siren sounded. We weren't expecting any severe weather, so I was nervous. I didn't know where the storm was, but I started telling Brandon to help me get the cats in their pet carriers. (We do that now in real life because I can't bear the thoughts of losing another pet in that way. One of my biggest fears is that we won't be able to find them all in time and we will have to leave one of them behind in a warning). Of course, Brandon goes to the bathroom and stays, and stays, and stays. (I've done that in my nightmares before too. I think the bathroom part of some of the nightmares comes from the fact that on April 27 I didn't go to the bathroom before the tornado came through. I thought the warning would be over in a few minutes and I would go then. I paid dearly for that decision and it shows even in my dreams now).

So Brandon is in the bathroom in the dream, and I was trying to get the cats into the carriers by myself. I kept yelling at Brandon,"We have to go!". Of course that didn't help. I managed to get Hammer and Miller into a carrier together (we put them in the same carrier in real life because Miller flips out when he's in one alone). I put Daisy in another. I yelled at Brandon again "we HAVE to go NOW!". I knew every minute we waited the tornado was getting closer and closer. Finally I decided to go ahead and take the pet carriers out and put them in the shelter and come back and get Lily since I couldn't take her down first and leave her. I couldn't get Furball in a carrier so I had to leave her inside.

Outside  the sky was so dark, and I knew the tornado was coming. Brandon appeared outside the shelter while I was taking the carriers down. He asked me what to do, and I yelled for him to bring Lily down. As we all sat in the shelter waiting for the storm to hit I kept thinking about having to leave Furball behind. Thankfully, I woke up before the storm hit just like I usually do.

NIghtmares like that have plagued me not just for almost 2 years since the tornado, but for my entire life. Long before April 27 I had nightmares of living through tornadoes though they were a LOT less frequent in those days.

Most people, even after April 27, hear about the chance of tornadoes and they might be a little worried, but it doesn't affect their life. When I hear about I get anxious until they threat is over, even if the forecast is several days in advance. I wait for it in dread. When most people hear that forecast they think "oh, it might get bad tomorrow", but when I hear it I think "I don't want to die tomorrow", and in my mind I feel like I'm going to have to fight for my life every time a thunderstorm comes through.

I was so numb after the tornado - that's how your body reacts so that you aren't too overwhelmed by the grief. There was so much to be done with the cleanup and insurance and starting over that I kept myself pretty busy so I didn't have to think about everything and feel all of those emotions. Well, that was fine in the beginning, but eventually I reached the point where I couldn't slow down. If I wasn't constantly doing something - like cleaning - then my mind started letting things in and I would get anxious and nervous. It reached the point where I didn't know how to relax. If I sat down to just watch TV or read I would get antsy because there were so many things I felt like I should be doing instead. A lot of times if I wanted to read I'd do it while walking on the treadmill, that way both my mind and my body were busy. I think I drove Brandon crazy constantly asking him to do things around the house that didn't really didn't need to be done right that minute, but if I saw something I could do that would distract me I couldn't stop thinking about it until it was done. I'm so grateful to be married to a counselor who realized what I was doing and kept encouraging me to talk to a counselor. Brandon and I never argued during those moments, he was just the voice of reason gently convincing me that we didn't need to mop the whole house at bedtime, or whatever strange thing popped into my mind.

I'm doing better. I can actually sit down and relax now. If I couldn't, I would be cleaning the entire house right now instead of writing this. It's still hard though. There are times when I want to do something to keep myself busy instead of relax, and I know I may never get completely away from that. But I'm trying. I've acknowledged that I can't do it on my own and that's one of the most important thing for anyone who lives with any form of PTSD - admitting that you need help and even more important than that is knowing that there is absolutely nothing wrong with admitting you need help.

Maybe tomorrow I'll write Part 2 about the rest of the things I've dealt with - the memory loss, seeing things that aren't there, and how overwhelming even the simplest things can be.

In the mean time, if I deal with these issues because of a natural disaster, just imagine what our returning soldiers, who've been through the horrors of war, are going through. My heart goes out to them. I hope they get the help they may need to adjust back into life outside of the war zone. Somehow we have to lose the stigma surrounding PTSD. Maybe it starts one person at a time.

Weight Loss Programs and Real Women

Here's one of my pet peeves - weight loss programs paying celebrities to lose weight. The most recent one has been Jessica Simpson getting paid $4 million dollars to lose her baby weight on their program. That's great for Jessica, not so great for the "normal moms" out there. Babies, or not, there is a big difference between normal women and celebrities.

Number 1) - Normal women don't get paid to lose weight. Not a million dollars, not a thousand dollars, not even a single dollar unless they find enough spare change on the ground while they are outside exercising to add up to a dollar. But if someone offered me enough money to lose my last few pounds of baby weight I'd make it a top priority. Until then I'll keep exercising and eating my chocolate.

Number 2) - Normal women have a limited amount of time to exercise, especially mothers. They don't get to spend hour upon hour at the gym working out. They have to cook, clean, run errands, do laundry, change diapers, run carpools, etc. On top of that a lot of women work outside of the home. They don't get to pay someone to do all of those things for them like a lot of celebrities do. Truth be known, I wouldn't want to pay someone to do those things for me. Then I wouldn't be able to rattle off a list of things I did that day to make my husband do a chore that I didn't want to do :)

Number 3) - Normal women don't always have the motivation to lose the weight. It's hard working out and eating the right way to lose weight when you're busy, stressed, and have a child that needs your attention. It would be a lot easier if you were rich and getting even richer every time you hit the gym. If I knew I was getting paid to work out I'd be doing it all of the time. The sad thing is Jessica Simpson got paid more to lose 50 pounds than I'll make working for 30 years.

I wish the weight loss programs would do all of the "normal women" out there a favor. Either start paying real moms to lose the weight, which would be a more realistic representation of your clientele, or stop paying the celebrities. Let them work to lose the weight without any incentive, just like millions of women in this world try to do everyday.

If only God had given us three hands

I was in the waiting room at the pediatrician's office last week trying to juggle my purse and Lily's diaper bag while keeping my little wiggle worm underneath a blanket so we could walk through the cold wind to the car after her appointment. I didn't know how to open the door since my hands were more than full. I was about to push it open with my hip, when a man opened the door for me. He said, "If only God had given us three hands". I agreed with him.

An extra hand sure would come in handy sometimes, I thought. Then I realized that none of my ideas would work with an extra hand. I still wouldn't be able to cook and do laundry at the same time. I still wouldn't be able to clean the house and read a book at the same time. That's what I really want to be able to do - multiple things at once. I don't need an extra hand; I need an extra me. Maybe that's why we only have two hands. Still it sure would be nice to be able to open a door without help.