A long time coming

It has been a long time since I have wrote anything in my blog.  As you know it’s pretty busy in the summer and dialysis blocked the blogging website so I can not do it then, which is when I usually did it.

This week was a very productive week.  We found out a lot because we went to mayo clinic for testing.  Mayo is of course the most beautiful and most organized hospital on earth.  Everybody works together there to make it so smooth.  We had 2 days, Tuesday and Wednesday to get all the testing done.  Testing usually takes about 3 to 4 days so we cut a lot of time off.   It is amazing that we made it to all the appointments, considering how crammed they made our schedule. 

The doctors say that I am still in good enough shape to have a transplant.  The only thing I have to work on is my blood pressure, it was so much higher at mayo clinic than it is at home.  I must have been nervous or something.  My arm also hurt that could be it to.  I heard that pain can make your blood pressure rise.  My arm hurt really bad too, so you never know.  According to the doctors I should be able to get another transplant.  This time around it is different though.  Carol Dykhouse the awesome wonderful lady that has offered to donate her kidney and is the best match possible has a positive antibody cross-match.  The positive cross-match means that the antibodies in my blood react to Carols blood.  So you want to have a negative cross-match.  We are a positive match of 300.  If you are over 300 positive there is a treatment called plasmapheresis. (not in the spell checker)   Plasmapheresis is basically like dialysis.  You go in for a week before the transplant and do a round a day where they take you blood out of you body and instead of taking the toxins out they take out the antibodies. This is dangerous because it lowers your immune system a little bit.  The doctors have done this very many times and have a great success rate. 

I keep thinking that the third time is a charm and I will be healthy again soon.  It has been a long time coming and Julie and I are very excited.

World Cup

Today I have been watching the world cup a little bit on the internet. Currently the USA is down 2 goals to Slovenia. You probably think that I am really lazy watching soccer in the middle of the day. Trust me I feel like a lazy bum. But I have a temperature of 102 and I am freezing my butt off. I had big plans for the day but those are now just plans that I had. Hopefully this temp will go away. Back to the world cup though. It is really fun to watch. I never was really a soccer guy, and I can't watch the whole game but I like to watch some of it. Soccer is a lot more physical than I would have thought. Some of the guys are just taking falls but it is still
pretty good.

The main reason I am watching this is, on Monday a girl did her speech in speech class on why we should watch the world cup. She showed some pretty cool videos which I am going to post below. I like the videos so much that I am now watching part of the games. Who new that I would like soccer. I love playing it but I never really watched it. So watch these videos and maybe you will watch a game also.

The top ten goal celebrations!


The soccer players are getting physical!

School

When I signed up for school I didn’t think that it would be this much work.  It always seems like kids in college are always doing fun stuff and with their friends all the time.  Even when I was working and my friends where in school they could always do something when I asked. For me though school takes up almost all my time.  The classes I am taking right now are all sped up.  They are 7 weeks instead of 14 weeks so I have twice the amount of homework that I would normally have during a regular semester.  For instance in the syllubus for my math class, it says we should be doing 10 hours of homework per week.  That is a lot of homework for one class.  If I did 10 hours for each class that is a full time job worth of homework.  And that doesn’t even count the actual classes which amount to 16 hours.  I also have dialysis 12 hours a week.  I promise you I don’t do 10 hours of homework per class per week though.  I think that I need to for my math class though.  It is getting easier but I did awful on the last test.  I was mistaken when I thought I could go through school with barely any work.  I now know I will be doing homework most of the time for the next year.

I don’t mind doing the work, I just feel like “I never have time to do anything that needs to be done.  Homework is always hanging over my head.  It may sound like I am complaining, but I’m not.  I just want you to know about school.  I actually like school alot.  I know I’m a nerd, I can’t help it.  It is actually a lot of fun.  I think it’s because most of my life I spent all day talking to my brother and dad and never would meet anyone new.  Don’t get me wrong, I love to talk to them.  It’s just I really like meeting new people.  I think it’s fun.  In school I meet someone new almost every class and I like that.  Well that’s my rant on school.  Hopefully the homework won’t kill me.  If this is just crazy the way it is written or if it has a lot of mistakes sorry I didn’t have time to proof read it. 

Dialysis

Yesterday we packed up and went camping.  It was not as much work as I thought it was going to be.  We are having a blast,  I just hope it doesn’t rain all day today.  It is supposed to but we have mainly missed it so far.  We might be far enough south.  I think that it’s fun because Ellie likes it so much, and of course the people we are with also.  Ellie definitely didn’t want to go to bed last night.  We had her up way to late. I don’t know if she ever saw fire before, she is mesmerized by it.  She also thinks that it would be fun to grab it.  She continually goes to the fire with her hands out, and I grab her and pull her back.  She thinks this is a game. 

This morning I had to go to dialysis.  Dialysis is so boring.  I usually can sleep during dialysis and then with an hour left I do homework or mess around on the computer.  Today I can’t sleep.  It feels like such a long time if you don’t sleep.  I drank mountain dew before I came this morning.  It was the only drink we had in the house because we brought all our juice camping.  I thought that the MD would be a good idea.  I don’t think that I should drink that again before dialysis.  It is for sure the culprit keeping me awake.  4 hours feels like a life time in dialysis when you can’t sleep.  All most everybody here sleeps the entire time.  They all ask for drugs, and say that they are itchy or feel weird, but I know it just to fall asleep the entire time.  Probably a smart idea but I’m worried that it would keep me asleep all day.  I don’t want to waste a whole day just because of dialysis.  The end is  near for dialysis and feeling sick.  We found out my aunt Deb is a fairly good match and they just have to test a few more people to see who is the best match.  So very good news, Julie and I are very excited.  It will be so great to have energy again and to have my strength back.  We should find out in a few months when the date will be.  I just have to get through a few more months.

Camping

Yesterday I went to go get our camper.  This is the most work I have done in a week.  Well I did pick quite a few weeds on Saturday.  My hand finally feels pretty good.  I am not supposed to use it for another week, but it’s just so hard not to use it because it feels so good.  I do have to be careful though because if the blood flow is cut off I will lose the fistula and that would mean another surgery.  I thought that would be a good update about my health.

Now about the camper.  We went to pick the camper up from the place we dropped it off last winter.  I can’t remember the name of it, but they probably have a 100 trailers there.   When you drive in it says it has a security guard.  It doesn’t.  Julie and I drove in grabbed our trailer and headed out, not a soul in sight.  I told Julie that we should have just hooked up to a bigger trailer like a fifth wheel or something.  We only took ours though,  and that should be good for the camping trip we are going on this weekend.  Camping for me is fun for about 1 day.  Then I have to sleep.  I for some reason I can not sleep while I am camping.  I feel like bugs are touching me and I feel sticky even if I just took a shower.  Sometimes when I see like ants by me or other bugs I feel like they are on me and can’t get it out of my mind.  I know it’s crazy, I think it might be a phobia. Some times Julie tells me when we are in bed at home that she sees a bug.  It’s not very nice. Anyway I stay awake usually about half the night.  The rest of camping is pretty good though.  I mean I have only ever gone for a weekend and at the end of the weekend I am ready to go, but it’s mostly fun that weekend.  The other thing is it is a lot of work especially with a pop up.  I don’t know if you ever had a pop up camper.  I can see how a big camper that doesn’t have to be opened up being really nice.  You can just throw you stuff in the camper and then take off.  Nice!!  A pop up you have to open the camper up at home and clean it, then put your stuff in, then close it up.  Then you go camping you open it up and camp.  Then you close it up.  Then you go home open it up clean it and then close it up.  When you only go camping for one whole day that is a lot of work.  Well that is what we are doing this weekend, guaranteed to be a lot of work.  In two weeks though, we go to Young State Park.  This is the best campground I think in the U.S..  If you haven’t gone, go, it has everything you need for a good time.  I like camping here, first of all because Julies whole family is there and they are fun.  Also there is a lot to do, the beach, boyne city and charlevoix.  This camping trip I get to go 2 weekends and only have to pack the trailer up three times instead of 6.  This is nice and I will enjoy this trip. Julie will be there 10 days so that’s nice for her to.  Maybe I will change my mind this weekend about camping for one weekend but probably not. 

Gods Lessons

I finally can type with two hands again. I can’t lift anything for two weeks but that is ok. I just boss Julie around. Just kidding, but she is always very helpful. On Wendesday I had surgery. The surgery that I had is for a fistula. A fistula is a vein in my arm that is tied off so that it gets more blood to it. They then can use it for dialysis. The blood flows much better than the port that I have right now, so I get much better dialysis. The port I have right now is in my chest and goes to one of the veins in my neck, while the fistula is in my arm. It is kind of weird getting used to this fistula in my arm. It vibrates, it’s really weird. If see me some time ask to feel it. You won’t believe it. It’s in my arm and I can’t believe it That is not really what I was going to write about this time though, I just thought I would give a little update.
What I really wanted to write about is hardships. You guys probably know that Julie and I have been through a couple rough things lately. Julie and I don’t really think of it like that most of the time. We kind of think we are normal which is a farfetched reality most of the time. I told Julie the other day that I couldn’t think of anything to write on the blog anymore. I said it was because nothing ever happens to me. The she reminded me I was in the hospital 2 times in two weeks and about all the crazy stuff that happens at school, that I haven’t even written about. Well I have written about my LAN class but that is just one class. Then I remembered we aren’t really normal right now and a lot does happen to me. We probably both once were normal, but that time has passed at least five years ago when Julie married me. She left her once normal life to join me in doctors’ appointments, surgery and oh yah food poisoning hospital visits. I hope someday that we are normal again and I can go to work and Julie doesn’t have to do all the jobs I am supposed to be doing like mowing the lawn and taking out the trash. That day might come sooner or later but for now we will just continue to be different. I think God has made us this way for a reason, actually I know he has. As I look back on both my transplants and Ellies hearing, I can see why God gave us these trials. Julie and I have grown much closer to God than we were even two years ago and also much closer to each other. Its weird our marriage, I think, is better for it. The other thing that God is using us for in all of this, is, other peoples’ blessings. If there was no one hard up in this world who would we help. I’m not saying that we need to rely on other people all the time but we do need to rely on God all the time and if that means other peoples help then that is what we will except. Even though it is hard sometimes. Everyone needs help sometimes. Julie and I have been blessed by so many people. God has given so many people gif s and talents that people have used to help us. Probably the biggest and best thing we have learned is we can not do it on our own. I know now that I have to give everything to God, not just some things. When we started to do this we realized how much better life is. As far as Ellies hearing goes, now she loves her implants and it just shows you how wonderful hearing is. Can you imagine a quiet world? Even as I write this I hear something. God gave us gifts we don’t even recognize or thank him for.
In the bible Paul says we need to rejoice in our hardships because God is testing us. That is sometimes very hard to do. Julie and I for the most part have learned to do just that. It took us a while. But we are joyful for everything that God has given us.

One Hand

Typing with one hand is a pain in the butt. I feel like that old guy who never learned to type and uses only two fingers. But I have nothing else to do so I am going to write this with the least amount of frustration as possible. I can only type with one hand, because today I had surgery on my arm. So if you are moving or need my help carrying something, sorry I can’t lift anything for two weeks. The surgery is for a new way to access my veins for dialysis. It is called a fistula. It’s basically a huge vein sticking out of my arm. Don’t be frightened the first time you see it. It may be very alarming. There are a few advantages to having this tumor coming out of my arm put in. First and probably most important is I can take a shower. That’s right I haven’t taken a shower since March. I take bathes, but I feel taking a bath is basically swimming in your own filth. So if you have smelled a stench coming off my body, thank you for not saying anything. Ignorance is bliss. The other benefit is that I get better dialysis this way. The new vein that they morphed into a giant vein carries more blood thus, the dialysis machine can process more blood in four hours, and I guess that is just as important as taking a shower.
The best part of going for the surgery is I am on a streak of three weeks in the hospital. I wasn’t in three weeks a straight but one day each week. First for my blood pressure, then for food poisoning, and today for fistula placement. Maybe next week will be my appendix. Just Kidding.

Face First

This weekend went by so fast. Between Katherine's house and Julie's parents, we were in the water about half the time. We found out Ellie loves the water. Before this weekend we couldn't even get Ellie in the bathtub. She now loves the bathtub. We went to my sister, Katherine's, house on saturday. It was really hard to tell if Ellie liked the water or not. Julie was playing with her in the pool, but she didn't show emotion one way or the other. When she got out, she just wandered away by herself--she often does that. The next day we went to Julie's parents. They live on a lake. The Lake is really nice--it doesn't have the gross bottom, well it does, just not by the shore. So we had Ellie playing by the shore in the water a little. She was loving it, I think because her older cousins were giving her the time of day. She decided she was able to handle herself and let go of my hand. I thought she was fine. She proceeded to (baywatch it) run into the deeper part of the water and tripped and face-planted into the water. I quickly grabbed her. She came up with a nostril full of water. She looked up at me and after the initial shock of the whole thing, she smiled at me. Pretty cute. Most kids like the water, I just thought it was funny how Ellie went from only taking a bath in the baby bathtub to now pointing to the kiddie pool when we go into the garage. I think she just needed to get really wet to really like the water.
With Ellie loving the water we do have one small problem. We have to take her cochlear implants off. She can't hear when she's by the pool or by the lake. We have a little bathing suit with a floater in the middle of it. She looks like a barrel with arms and legs. This, however, doesn't help if she goes face first in the water. She has done very well so far and has stayed away from the edges of the pool. Julie and I said we will have to teach her to swim very soon.

Website!

For the past to weeks I have been working on a website.  I finally finished today.  I have posted it, and it looks pretty good.  Well at least I think it does.  On the website it explains how to figure out the best golf clubs for any individual, and then, you can check out the golf clubs I have for sale.  I hope this site is nice.  If there is a problem with it please let me know, as it is fairly new.  If you want to check it out.  It is an all golf site.  The site is www.thebrainongolf.com.  This is a New website.  I hope to make it so much better, I just basically wanted to get it online.  If you would like me to add something or if you have an idea to add something please let me know.   I really would like ideas to add to it.  Also I would like to do one more website.  If you have an idea let me know.  I am thinking maybe child products I don’t know yet.

Sick

Julie, Ellie and I have had a really good weekend so far.  On Friday we went to Republic the restaurant for Jason Bosmas birthday.  On Saturday we went to Katherine and Jeremys house, my sister and brother-in-law.  They have a pool and volleyball court and other great stuff.  For sure the party house.  She doesn’t know it but that’s the start of a long summer with the whole Pettinga family coming over.  If she is not sick of us already I promise she sill be.

Katherines was fun but this is not the story of the weekend.  Like I said we went out for Jason Bosmas birthday on Friday.  We went to the Republic were you can get either there food, or the next door neighbors Rockwells food.  I got a sandwich from Rockwells, the French dip sandwich.  It was awesome.  I love that restaurant!  Well after about 45 minutes I started to feel really bad.  I had a pain in my stomach.  I went to the bathroom with no relief.  So I grabbed Julie from the dinner table, and left rather rudely.  We walked down division very quickly and when we got to the art studio just south of the restaurant, I couldn’t hold it any more and puked on the side of the building.  Now I was feeling very sick, the pain in my stomach was unbearable.  I think that that was one of the worst feelings I have ever had.  I started sweating profusely.  I was dripping like I had just played a full basketball game in 100 degree heat.  So Julie picked me up on the side of the road  and I told her we need to go to the hospital.  Well I’ll make the rest of the story short.  I ended up having food poisoning.  Crazy huh.  I have never had it before but that was awful.

So that is the story of the weekend for me.  However the weekend isn’t over.  Tomorrow I go golfing again.  I’ll see if I can do some work after we’re done or if I have to take a long nap again.  Today we will have some fun by the beach.      

Creation

Ok I know I already talked about creation vs. Evolution but it just bothers me.  It bothers me because the are taking creationism out of kids schools.  They are taking it out of college, and they are it treating like a truth.  The other thing is there is not as much scientific evidence to defend it as there is for creation.

First I want to say how do you make something out of nothing.  In the future they might create something with two protons, that doesn’t bother me.  God could have smashed two protons together for all I know he did use Adams rib to create woman.  The thing that bugs me is were did those protons come from and why has this not happened again.  

I love it how satan uses anything to put doubt in our heads.  It works so good. I mean he is fooling millions of people.  Like I said before that I always think about the dinosaurs.  Is’nt that funny.  You just have to have faith there has do be an answer that works.   Ok they have some fossils, they don’t have all of the them.   So it is all speculation and it does take a lot of faith just like creationists do.  Just like we need to have faith.  Not everything has been explained to us.  The other example is man and women.  This is the most proof of all.  Our attractions and emotions toward each other are perfectly matched. How can that be.  Everything goes together.  Also I don’t think that any emotions have changed over the years.  Don’t you think that we would be able to feel a different emotion the emotions had to develop over the years.  God made those constant for us. 

God is pretty amazing.  A friend of mine Katie Systma showed me something called the intelligent design theory.  It is a group of scientists that are proving that the world was created by what they call something with a mind which is obviously God.  It is pretty cool the have a lot of evidence and it just gives you a stronger faith. Check it out. God is Great!!

Busy

One of those things that makes me cringe is when I get a spider web in the face. This morning I did just that, I walked into a spider web in between Julies car and mine. The spider was going for the world record of spider webs the gap is 4 foot wide between the cars. I don’t know what the spider was thinking. Actually I do that spider is thinking that I killed his brother yesterday while he was climbing on Ellies swing set and he is now going to make me uncomfortable by putting his web in my face. Anyway in digress.

This week I have been very very busy. Actually the last three weeks since I started school have been crazy. I don’t think there was one day in the last three weeks I didn’t get up at 6:00 and go to bed at 11:30, and I was doing something that needed to be done the whole time . I guess I can just sit and relax at dialysis but that really still feels like work believe it or not. I am not trying to sound like I’m complaining well except for the spider web in my face. I really like what I’m doing right now. School is fun, I love learning new things. It’s totally opposite of what I was like the year I went to GRCC right after high school. Then I was only worried about girls and friends, and were the next place I could play basketball was. Now I have a goal and I really like to do the work. It’s hard to find time to study. Every time I turn my head Ellie is poking her baby cousins eye out. Or she is testing her new jumping skills off the couch. So I try to study after bed time.

I am sure that’s how you are as well ,busy, especially those that are parents. Not that people without kids aren’t busy it’s just you make yourselves busy. With a kid you’re like a servant. At 8:30 you can finally relax. I am not saying I don’t love the time I spend with Ellie and nephews and nieces. I do more than anything. It’s just not what I expected when I was childless. It’s much better than what I expected. A parents love is different than any other love.

Busy

One of those things that makes me cringe is when I get a spider web in the face.  This morning I did just that, I walked into a spider web in between Julies car and mine.  The spider was going for the world record of spider webs the gap is 4 foot wide between the cars.  I don’t know what  the spider was thinking.  Actually I do that spider is thinking that I killed his brother yesterday while he was climbing on Ellies swing set and he is now going to make me uncomfortable by putting his web in my face.  Anyway in digress.

This week I have been very very busy.  Actually the last three weeks since I started school have been crazy.  I don’t think there was one day in the last three weeks I didn’t get up at 6:00 and go to bed at 11:30, and I was doing something that needed to be done the whole time .  I guess I can just sit and relax at dialysis but that really still feels like work believe it or not.  I am not trying to sound like I’m complaining well except for the spider web in my face.  I really like what I’m doing right now.  School is fun, I love learning new things.  It’s totally opposite of what I was like the year I went to GRCC right after high school.  Then I was only worried about girls and friends, and were the next place I could play basketball was.  Now I have a goal and I really like to do the work.   It’s hard to find time to study.  Every time I turn my head Ellie is poking her baby cousins eye out.  Or she is testing her new jumping skills off the couch. So I try to study after bed time. 

I am sure that’s how you are as well ,busy,  especially those that are parents.  Not that people without kids aren’t busy it’s just you make yourselves busy.  With a kid you’re like a servant.  At 8:30 you can finally relax.  I am not saying I don’t love the time I spend with Ellie and nephews and nieces. I do more than anything.  It’s just not what I expected when I was childless.  It’s much better than what I expected.  A parents love is different than any other love. 

Update on LAN

I can't believe I forgot to tell you about my Lan class last week. Something good always happens in that class. By the way if you missed the last post about my LAN class, LAN is an acronym for Local area network. Basically we are learning to become computer network specialists. In this class we all basically know everything about computers and if we don't we fake it. In this spectacular four hour class we discussed cables that connect networks. Yes there is enough information on cables that we can take up 4 hours of lecture. It's so interesting. You may think that I am being facisious but I'm not. For some reason this is interesting to me.

SO we were talking about how cat 5 cable is better than coaxial cable. This is a very well known fact. Most everyone in our class already knows this. One of the guys in our class spoke out and said that his boss says coaxial is much better. He works for one of the cable companies in town. Our teacher procided by telling the guy that his boss is wrong and coaxial does have benifits but cat 5 is better networking wire. He however did not like being corrected and stormed out of class. He forgot his bag and everything. He was to say the least very mad. All we could do is look at each other kind of like Jim from the show "The Office" looks at the camera. Well he missed the best part of class and hopefull some how got is bag back.

If you could only be in this class with me, I think you would love it to. The cray things that happen in LAN class. You can't help from laughing.

Hospital!!

The hospital is not really that bad. I do like one thing about it. That thing is, they have the best Jello. I can eat it anytime I want. So I eat a lot of it. So I said one thing that is good about the hospital. Now I will tell you the bad parts. I hope you don't think that this me being negative because I know how important my health is and they really do a good job at the hospital.

You know how I love the jello here, well I don't like the food at all. It is hard for me to believe that they can't make good food for the thousands of people here. When Julie and I had Ellie we recieved restruant style food. It was awesome. You called down to the kitchen and they brought you something like a chicken breast smothered in cheese and mushrooms. Or you know something like that. They give the rest of the population the nasty food. How hard is it to do that food for everyone? I have been to a lot of hospitals in my life. I can tell you right now I pick which ER I go to by the food they serve. Spectrum has the best but could do so much better.

Another thing about the hopital is you never get what you need when you need it. I will give spectrum this they are much better than Saint Marys. Saint Marys is very under staffed in my opinion. They just never get there in time when you need something. Spectrum is much better something you would wait for in Saint Marys for 3 hours, spectrum gets it to you in 45 minutes. It's so funny, If I need something like morphine, you get it after suffering excrucieating pain for a half hour. I am not trying to complain but that really hurts going that long in pain. Well I did remember one thing just now that is nice about the hospital.

All the nurses know me here. I like that. Instead of the nurses just passing by and asking how I'm doing. They ask about my family and really want to know what’s going on with my family. They know me because I have been in the Hospital three times this year but at least something good came out of that.

I just want to say that if the food was better I would be happy to stay here. Well not happy but you know what I mean. By the way I am doing fine and my eye is almost back to normal.

Vision

A lot has happened since the last time I wrote on this blog.  Unfortunately I am writing from the hospital right now.  This morning I went to dialysis just like every other Saturday.  I fell asleep right away.  When I woke up my vision was super blurry.  I could see very little.  It was like looking through someone else’s glasses.  If you have ever done that, you know it is really annoying.  The doctor said he thinks that I just need a different pair of glasses.  He also thinks my blood pressure is very high and is blurring my vision.  Not having good vision is very hard.  I can barely see what I am writing.  So please excuse any mistakes I make.  The good new is that I can get new glasses to take care of the problem.  The bad news is that it usually takes about a week to get a new pair.  This will work out, so we will just pray and let God take care of it. 

This is not the only crazy thing that happened to us.  One local area business put on a garage sale for us this week. The crazy part is the sign with my name on it that you could see for a mile.  Pretty crazy. The business has 80 employees and  I think everyone there brought something.  What a wonderful group of people. They made enough money for us to travel to mayo clinic and enough to pay for the donor to travel as well.  I think this is just another example of Gods love.  It seems like Julie and I should be on the streets right now because of our situation, but we always have enough.  God is great!!!  I can see why community in Christ is so important.  Everyone needs help at some point.

Here are pictures of the sale and a picture of how good my sight is.

 

 

 

Holland MI

I heard on the radio today something kind of cool today.   Holland  Michigan is one of the happiest towns in America.  This might seem strange to you because it is also one of the hardest towns to find a job in.  I know that a lot of people who live in Holland have jobs in GR or other area towns. I am sure many people in Holland are hurting because of lack of jobs in their home town.  It just goes to show that money has nothing to do with your happiness.

Money can make you happy.  It is a temporary fix though.  I used to think that I needed something or wanted something and when I bought it I would be better or happier. You know the feeling you get when you buy something that it is new and exciting.  This feeling usually goes away for me in about 10 minutes.  It is such a temporary fix.  I can see why people are so consumed with making money.  If you don’t have God to relieve that feeling of need, you need to make more money to buy more stuff more frequently.  I think that  is why we are so consumed with things.  It is so hard to get away from this too ,   because we spend so much time with advertisements and talking about things without really realizing it.

I think Holland is a great place because of the community in Christ.  It is such a good small town with a lot of Christians in it.  They help support each other when others are down and they are truly happy.  A lot of people must trust in God for all their needs in Holland.   Like the residents in Holland, we should also  have no worries if we truly trust in God.   Jesus never owned anything that we know of, except clothes. He was given everything he needed.  We are so consumed by consumerism that we don’t see what we really need.

Julie and I have been taught a lot of things between me not working, waiting for a kidney transplant and Ellie being born hard of hearing.  One thing that we have learned is that God Is faithful.  Just when you think you don’t have something or you can’t pay a medical bill.  One of Gods disciples shows up and gives you what God has given them.  It is hard not to worry sometimes but life is much better when you learn that you have no power on this earth.  God gives and can take away. If God took all your possessions and money away would you still be happy.  It is hard to imagine but think about it.  Love God and love your neighbor and you will be happy and content.

Brakes

Sunday was a really good day.  However my brakes gave out on the way home from Julies piano recital.  It was on the East Beltline and I almost went through a red light.  I ended up driving home and made it just fine.  I had to slow down a bit so that I could stop at every light. 

Yesterday I made the decision to fix the brakes myself.  I made this decision because of the fact that I have done it before.  It was really pretty easy the last time.  So I went Auto Zone and bought the brake pads, I knew that I needed.  I went back home and proceeded to take the tire off and change the brake pads.  I didn’t get very far.  The rotor which is the part the brakes squeeze to make you stop was shot.  So I took Julies car and went to go get new rotors.  I put the new rotors on and I realized I didn’t have a c-clamp for pushing the thing back in.  I can not think of the name of the thing for the life of me.  By this time Julie was gone, so I rode my bike to the hardware store. This was a chore my legs and lungs were burning and it is less than a mile away.  I finally got back with only one break on the way home and found out that the thing was seized and the clamp didn’t help anyway.  Ok if you know me, you know that I have a little problem with patience.  I was very frustrated by now.  So after a few choice words, and a half hour of waiting for Julie to get home,  I was finally able to get a new thing(I still can’t think of the word). So after all of that I finally got home and finished the brakes.  I was so happy finally done.  I got in my truck and tried to push the brakes down.  They went to the floor.  So right now Julie and I are working on one car.  I looked on the internet to see what I had to do and I think I just need to bleed the brake lines. 

Last night I had a class to go to so I told Julie that I was going to ride my bike.  I ended up calling my mommy to take me to school.  I knew that I might make it there but I would never make it back.  It is all up hill.  I never understood the low gears on bikes, I think it’s harder in low gear because your legs have to move twice as fast.  Any way I arrived at school and Julie picked me up so it worked out perfect.  God has a funny way of taking your stresses and showing you that he is in charge.  I stressed out because who can live life with only one car, when Julie is working and I have school. God is good.  Every time Julie and I worry about something God shows us how powerful he is, and how he has a plan for our lives.  Pretty humbling don’t you think?  Why do we even worry at all.  Jesus tells us not to.  We are his children.  I like to think about how much I love Ellie and Julie.  God loves us so much more.  I would never let Ellie or Julie go hungry or let them get hurt.  God would never let something happen to us that is not needed for his plan.    

LAN Class

I can't believe I forgot to tell you about my LAN class last week.  Something good always happens in that class.  By the way if you missed the last post about my LAN class, LAN is an acronym for Local area network.  Basically we are learning to become computer network specialists(computer nerds).  In this class we all basically know everything about computers and if we don't we fake it.  In this spectacular four hour class we discussed cables or wires that connect networks.  Yes there is enough information on cables that we can take up 4 hours of lecture.  It's so interesting.  You may think that I am being facetious but I'm not.  For some reason this is interesting to me. 

So we were talking about how cat 5 cable is better than coaxial cable.  This is a very well known fact.  Most everyone in our class already knows this.  One of the guys in our class spoke out and said that his boss says coaxial is much better than cat five. Some instances it is.  He works for one of the cable companies in town.  Our teacher proceeded by telling the guy that his boss is wrong and coaxial does have benefits but cat 5 is a better networking wire.  He however did not like being corrected and stormed out of class.  He forgot his bag and everything.  He was to say the least very mad.  Everyone in class looked at each other kind of like Jim from the show "The Office" looks at the camera.  Well he missed the best part of class and hopefully some how got is bag back. We all have our boxes (laptops) in our bags.

If you could only be in this class with me, I think you would love it to.  The crazy things that happen in LAN class.  You can't help but laugh. 

Kind of funny video below.

Creation?

If you know me, you know that my brain seems to work extra hard on things that, well, I just want to call ideas.  I have so many ideas.  Most are just an idea and then it just passes by.  One thing that I think about a lot is creation.  I guess I  can’t really grasp the theory of evolution.  Satan tries to put in my brain some pretty crazy things sometimes.  He always gets me with the dinosaurs.  I think how could there be dinosaurs.  Why do I think this--I don’t know?  In the bible it says creation was done in 7 days by God.  It says there was day and night, so the theory that each day was a huge period of time is what I believe to be wrong.  But I mean, who really cares about dinosaurs anyway.  My brother says he thinks God put the bones in the ground.  Well I don’t know if that’s correct or not, could very well be.  

Being a very health challenged person,  I have a lot of knowledge about how the body works.  When I think about something like dinosaurs my mind comes back to this. How in the world can you look at the kidney that does only one very small function in the body and think that we are from a very small atom.  If you think we came from a fish, think about our brain or our veins and the intricate way they wind through our body in the perfect way.  I think that the evidence of creation far out weighs the evidence for evolution.  In fact is there any for evolution.  Doesn’t seem like there is much.

I think most people think that there is a God.  They choose to rebel against him for some reason.  Probably because they are so consumed in selfish gains and worldly problems that they can’t see the truth.  Actually most people see the truth just don’t want the responsibility that comes with it.  Check out this video below it’s kind of funny and very true.

So Tired!

This is probably an add-on from this mornings blog.  Today was a great day, but I was so tired.  I never would have imagined that 18 holes of golf in a cart would = 4 hours of sleep today.  In fact I couldn’t function. I fell asleep the same time Ellie did.  Julie went to the grocery store, and when she got home she found me still asleep and Ellie screaming her lungs off.  Who knows how long she was screaming, I was oblivious.  Because of these four hours of sleep Julie and I missed an awesome birthday party for Ryan Vanderlaan, Happy Birthday Ryan. It however is not all my fault. Julie has her final piano recital tomorrow and didn’t have her stuff together by three either.  She had an additional 3 hours of work to do. 

Right now at Ryans party they are probably having a cold soda or beer and eating really good food.  Lynn (his wife) told us that 80 people would be in their backyard.  Sounds like a fun party.  Instead I slept 3 hours and did 3 hours of homework.  I remember now why school was so hard for me in the past.  I really liked the social part of it. It shows you how much a person matures over the years.  Not that I am that mature.  In fact, Julie would have a different opinion on the subject of my maturity.  Well, at least I’m mature in my responsibilities. 

This is tough for me, being am so tired.  If every time I play 18 holes of golf I have to sleep 4 hours, Julie will never let me play 18 again.  For that matter I might have to sleep 2 hours for 9 holes.  There goes my golf all together.  I will just have to tell Julie that I need to get in golf shape and then maybe I can play even more. 

 

 

I didn’t leave the cart after 12 holes except for shots.That’s right standing up for pictures is a waste of energy.

Golf Outing

Yesterday was Ellie's schools Golf Outing. This outing is the only fund raiser for the whole year. You might know that Ellie is hard of hearing and has bilateral cochlear implants so that she can hear. Her school is Shawnee Park Oral Deaf Program. The school is part of the Grand Rapids Public schools. As you might know GRPS has had to make a lot of cuts. This Golf outing pays for someone from Kindermusik to come in and work with the children. It also pays for part of the playground keep up. (They have an awesome playground). Depending on the funds, it can also pay for much much more! Last year the Golf outing made $23,000. This is unbelievable to me. I can see how they do it now that I have been to the outing. They have so many people that support the school. This outing was so much fun. If you work for a charity or if your organization needs more money, consider doing a golf outing. I can show you how to run it. Thanks for everyone who worked there and supported the school.

Crazy Day!!!

Just like the title says, today was an awful crazy day. I start out every Thursday at 6:15 am in the dialysis chair. This is usually ok because I can sleep for a couple hours and then do some homework. Today, on the other hand, was different. I fell asleep right away, which is good, but at 7:30 I woke up sweating and nauseous. I ended up dry heaving for 20 minutes straight. I guess I had an air bubble my blood line. This air bubble is from oxygen in the blood. The machine takes this air bubble out and since the oxygen is gone in the blood, I don’t get that to my brain. Anyways, my blood pressure dropped and I felt awful. So after I recovered from that I went back on the machine. Then towards the end of the run, my blood thickened up and I had to be taken off the machine early. This is bad as you can imagine. I don’t get as many toxins taken out, and not as much water taken off my body. The techs joked saying I should stay home and not leave the house all day due to my start of the day.

This problem was not my only one. I am currently working on a house that my father-in-law bought. It is already sold and I only have one thing left to do. I need to get this done. Well I went to do this job today. I found out really what I already knew. I am very weak. I had a hard time even climbing the ladder today. I also forgot to bring the right extension cord and a separate time, forgot to take my camera. I finally got home after all this and had to quick do homework. I know that this probably isn’t the worst day you have ever heard of, but it was one of the worst I had in long time. I was very frustrated.

After all this happened I drove to school because I have a class from 6:00pm-10:00pm. On the way to this class I was listening to WJQ 99.3. They read Philippians 2:14 it says “Do everything without complaining or arguing.” I just had to laugh. Who says God doesn’t talk to us. That was about as plain a voice as it could be. God knows what I need. Needless to say I tried to take the verse to heart.

Are You Green Enough

Are you green enough to make a difference. I am probably not. I recycle and try to bring back all my aluminum cans. I feel like I should do so much more. God gave us a job and that is to take care of his creation. It is very important to be “Green”. So I looked up some ways to be friendlier to the earth. Even if you do one of these things you are making a difference.

1.Drive less: When you run your errands do them all at once and try buy more and store up. For example in stead of buying one package of toilet paper buy two, or instead of buying 1 pound of hamburger buy 2 or 3. Buy two weeks of groceries instead of one. It saves you time and money by driving less. Just plan ahead.

2.Turn off your computer: Make sure that your computer at home and at work are turned off when you are done with it.

3.Buy Safe cleaning Supplies: Green works makes good cleaning supplies and are probably cheaper than what you use. Another good way to clean is with ¼ cup of distilled vinegar with a cup of water and a few drops of olive oil.

4.Turn off the lights: I know there are those people who are seriously anal about turning off the lights. This one is so easy turn the lights off your not using. I know I can do this and considering that electricity uses 1.9 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, turning off the switch is a good start.

5.Take your own bag: Those plastic bags. They take so much carbon to make and they fill out land fills. Please get a reusable bag and use it for groceries and shopping at the mall.

6.Buy recycled products: In this day and age we mostly all recycle. The thing we need to make sure we do is buy the material that is recycled.

7.Reuse: Water bottles, Plastic bags, Paper bags, these are the things that I can think of comment if you can think of more.

There are so many things that you can reuse, recycle and use less of. Make sure you are doing something. My family thinks it is important. If God gave you a job isn’t that what we should be focusing on. We think that the businesses can do the most but if we do these things our carbon footprint will be less and doesn’t that feel good.

Weak in GR

If you know me you know I waiting on my third kidney transplant. The first two times it wasn't as apparent as it is this time that I am weak, skinny and altogether unable to work. I think that very soon I will be on disability. This is not the best thing for my ego. My whole life I have prided myself on being a hard worker. In fact that is kind of what my life was about from about age 18 to 26. I thought the harder I work the more money I will make and save, and I would receive more respect from my peers. After all everyone loves a hard worker. After about 26 I realized that that is not what God has planned for me. I know now that God needs to use me in a different way than I thought.

First I know that I am not supposed to work construction. This is very weird because, to be frank I am very good at it. Well I used to be when I could actually lift more than one 2x4 at a time. What I have learned is God gave me a gift with all these trials. You probably think how is doing dialysis and having to have a third kidney transplanting a gift. Well I believe God is using me to accept other people’s gifts. This was very hard at first. It took a lot of sermons and people telling me its ok for me to accept any monetary or personal help. My strength was really my weakness. God took all of these people in my family, church, and group of friends and gave them gifts, but they needed someone to use them on. That someone was Julie, Ellie and I. I will give you a couple examples not that that would even touch the about of love, support and prayer we received. You can't imagine! Two weeks ago the cadets from our church came over and spread woodchips around our house. Something that would have taken me weeks, they finished in 2 hours. They are in 7th grade and they didn't complain once and actually thanked me for a measly donut. Like that made up for what they did. I just want to thank anyone who has helped us over the years. Hopefully you have been as blessed as we have from your help.

When you are in a bad spot and ask yourself "Why do bad things happen to good people?" Just remember that we don't deserve anything not even health, (a good example of this is Job) but by grace God gives it to us. Julie and I are so blessed. Thank you

LAN CLASS NERDS, NERDS, NERDS

Most of you know that at 29 years of age I have decided to go back to school. The building market is just so bad and I have had such bad experiences with it, that I actually don't want anything to do with it. This is sort of a problem since I have 11 years experience building and not much experience in anything else. So school was the logical choice. School is pretty good. I take a math class, intro to public speaking and LAN class. My math class is just a lot of homework and I am starting to get fairly good at it. Like I said in facebook, it took me a very long time to do factoring polynomials. I am now a professional after about 2 hours of homework today and yesterday. My speech class as you can imagine comes fairly natural to me. I like to speak to people and when I have peoples undivided attention, even better. Now my LAN class is my favorite, in fact I think that I have to give it a whole new paragraph.

LAN stands for local area networking. I love this class, it is all about computers and it brings out the nerd in me. In fact I think it brings out the nerd in everyone in my class. I don't believe there is anyone in the class that can dodge the tag nerd. Just take the teacher for example. He was telling us a story about a school that he works on. He said that he took care of the vandal problem they were having in the parking lot by putting free wireless in the parking lot. The cops came and used the wireless at night and that solved the problem. The teacher thought he was quite funny by telling this story and started laughing at himself. As he was laughing the guy with the highest voice in our class, that goes for the women in the class as well, interupted and informed the teacher that according to section 4576 cops are not aloud to have internet connection in their cruisers. This is just an example of the crazyness of the class. I have never felt so comfortable in my entire life. We are all nerds in this class and we bring out the nerd in each other. In this class I have already learned that you call a laptop a "box" and if you have any sense you will buy a Lenovo "box" or a Mac "box". I have neither of these. I am afraid to take my "box" out as I would get a nerd lashing. I think that this class is going to be great.

Bible Study.

About once a month Julie (My Wife) and I have Bible study on Friday night. This week we had it in our house. If you have ever been to our house you know how big it is. Not very. Our Bible study could have up to anywhere from 24 people, which we could not fit. It however worked out fine because only 13 people showed and we had the perfect amount of seating. I have to admit Julie and I were kind of worried. For the Bible study we are studying the Heidelberg Catechism sorry about the spelling. I think going to church all my life you would think I know this backwards and forwards. I however don't know anything in it but question one. "Q.What is you only comfort in life and death?" "That we are not our own but belong to God." Doesn't that seem like that is the most important anyway. I mean it is comforting and I always knew this one so I thought I was good. Well now I am finding out that there is so much more to it. I am slowly reading this all of these questions and each is as important as the next.

The book we are reading to compliment the chatechism and sort of explain it to us is by Rev. Scott Hoezee. The book is called "Speaking of Comfort: A look at the Heidelberg Catechism".( Speaking of Comfort: A Look at the Heidelberg Catechism )This book has a lot of great insights. I think first this week the thing I took from it is about Faith. I always thought that Faith was my choice and kind of my gift to God. I found out this week that I was dead wrong. Faith is a not my gift but a gift from God to me. God gives me faith. I am predestined for the kingdom. I did not make a choice I am just given Gods Grace. Well this is very crazy for me to think. I just thought that is kind of cool. I don't have to worry about anything God has already chose me and has given me Faith so that I can see his Grace. Awesome!!!