Recent Events

Today I started a medication called Cymbalta. My doctor gave me samples of it to try yesterday, so today is my first day on it. WOW…can you say FATIGUE!!! I have never experienced anything like this in my whole life!!!!

I have stayed up till 4 a.m. with Daisy as the puppies were coming, then got up again at 7:00 for the day. And was fine all day. I have had days of very little sleep with new born babies and NEVER felt anything like this!

I yawn (You know that feeling you get as its coming, your jaw forces itself open and you CANT STOP IT no matter how hard you try) And after the yawn is done, another one comes, and another and another, and I just cant stop it! Its a Horrible feeling!

So that has been my WHOLE day today! I was able to do a good portion of school with the kids, but couldn’t quite finish. But hey, I was proud I got as far as I did with feeling as tired as I was today!

Well, in other news, puppies are turning 5 weeks this Thursday the 28th. And they are just the cutest thing on the planet right now.
(Except when I woke up this morning at 6 to take them out to pee)
They are sleeping a little less and playing a little more, and its So funny to watch them pounce each other, and mom and dad! Such cute little “Cocktail Franks”. hahaha

Well, thats it in my world for the moment.

I just wanted to let everyone know we posted new updated puppy pictures under “Puppies 08” or “http://ctremail.com/services/pupies08” .



The first bunch on there are when they are about 8 hours old. Unfortunately I dont have a way of putting in text to show what picture is what age, but, when they have their eyes open they are at least 12 days old. The last few on there were taken today.

Enjoy!

I was planning to make a post today about how Mark and I are celebrating our 10th anniversary today, but Marko beat me to it!
(Isnt he a QT!)


I am not a poet like Mark, but I want to say; these past 10 years have been full of wonderful memories. Even the hardest times have been worth going through because I have such a good, sweet, loving and understanding man!

We have grown so much, and learned so much from each other, and had some awesome memories! Allow me to share snip its from these past 10 years together:



Year 1: We lived in a small 1 bed room apartment, both of us working, blissfully happy in our “honeymoon stage”. Mark is going to college and working Very hard!


Year 2: Mark is still working full time and going to college full time. We go through Frustrating feelings and discouragement, as we unsuccessfully try to start our family. Emptiness threatens to consume us.


Year 3: We experience tears of sorrow, and finally joy as we are blessed with our first child Savannah! Shortly after, Mark loses his job and finishes his Bachelors degree in computer science.


Year 4: Mark is out of work for almost a year. Despite Trying hard every day, he is unable to secure a job due to lack of experience in his field, or over qualification in jobs NOT in his field.
Mark buys a high quality camera and starts doing wedding photography to earn money on side jobs.
I am working, and trying not to get overwhelmingly sad at the fact that my new little baby and I are separated for more then 8 hours a day.


Year 5: Mark is blessed with a good job, after going through a few small jobs, and I am blessed enough to stay at home with Savannah and our new addition, Kiera! And later I start babysitting my sisters child Drey.


Year 6: Mark changes jobs, where he makes a little more. We search for a home of our own for months, and end up at a home of Matt’s to rent for a while. Then we fall in love with our neighborhood and ward, and swear never to leave. So we buy the house, and for the first time, we feel we are FINALLY HOME!


Year 7: I spend this year enjoying being a stay at home mom, and care taker of my sisters child Drey. Mark is still working at his job, and loving it! He works so hard at his job, and also side jobs of photography to help keep me home. (Which I am eternally greatful to him for) His job allows him to work from home so he can help me on days I need a little more support.


Year 8: I am still loving being a stay at home mom, and now I start watching my sisters newest child Mila. Mark works from home a few days a week, helping me as I struggle with tendinitis in my arms.


Year 9: I start home schooling Savannah, Kiera and Drey after having a less then positive experience in the public school kindergarten. Mark is working hard as ever, now able to be at his office more then at home. (I finally got the routine down and my arms are healing. Mark and I are enjoying our lovely little family! Our girls Love when daddy comes home! As do I!


Year 10: I continue home schooling, and loving it! I face medical trials, and Mark is a real support and help to me through all my pain and complaining! He does all he can, and more, to try to help me. He goes into debt to try to help relieve some of my pain. (I might add that he despises debt, and so for him, this was a real sacrifice!)



One thing I have discovered through these past 10 years, is …. Every year I am more in love with Mark then I was the year before!
Thanks, Mark, for all the years of sweat, tears, pain and most of all, for all the Wonderful love and support you have always been to me!
I am looking forward to see whatthe next 10 years has in store for us!


I love you.

For ALL ETERNITY. <br
Bonnie

Her Sunrise



Hues of red rise in the East, bathing the clouds in deepest crimson.

Bars of light slice through the sky, freeing my soul with its ransom.



Moments of disregard and reawakening, stir ones awareness of change.

From crimson to gold within a breath, throughout the Celestial range.



Slumber clasps ignorance to a sleeping world, unawareness refined.

Oblivious of the mornings splendor, hollow imaginations of the mind.



Prisms of purity, revealing elements of truth, unto one such as I.

Abolishing darkness, bringing warmth and love, holding me nigh.



Such is the state of my mortal plane, the beauty within my life.

All gratitude given to my sunrise, my eternity, my wife.

Written for my dearest Bonnie, on this the Tenth anniversary of our life together.

Yours for time and all eternity,




Mark Barber

So the puppies are 3 weeks old this coming Thursday. At first the 3 brown girls looked identical, so we have waited to name them. But yesterday we started noticing one of them is definatly long haired. Her fur is starting to get wavy, and is a bit longer then the rest.
We got all 4 of them out today and discovered that we have one long hair with duke’s coloring, one short hair with Duke’s coloring, and one that looks like she might be red like Daisy. She is not the shade of her other 2 sisters, so that is fun!



So the long hair girl, we have named Curley Sue, The one that looks like Duke is DJ (that stands for Duke Jr, but since its a girl we are calling her DJ, sounds more feminine) The one that looks like Daisy we are going to call DeeDee. The black girl we are calling Black Beauty.

I am pestering Mark to post more pictures of the puppies, but so far he hasnt emptied the camera. Keep checking back for pictures, hopefully they’ll be on here soon! :)

Yesterday Mark was able to get our new hot tub up and running. We filled it with water around 4:00 pm, and by about 10:30 or 11:00 pm it was up to temp. Which was 103 degree’s.


So after game night ended we tried it out for the first time! Which was about midnight!



It was absolutely wonderful! So blisfully relaxing, and it has groovy gets that massage the back, feet, and even shoulders!
It is deeper then our old hot tub, and much more snazy!

It was pure bliss roasting up to my chin in hot water while gazing at the few stars we could see from the city! I told mark how awesome it would be to have the view that we had of the stars up in the mountains while sitting in our tub!!!


I dont know if it was the tub, but I sure slept good last night!!! And for those of you who know me well, that is really something!!! So, we’ll be trying an experiment to see how much this helps me with my fibro! If nothing else it helps me and my muscles relax before bed time!



Thanks to Everyone who helped us get things ready, and helped us get it moved!
All my family and friends have been an outstanding support to me and I’m So grateful to all of you!


Love you all!
THANKS!

Ok, for those of you who follow my blog here is a list of things that have been going on:


-The puppies started opening their eyes last night. And one of them has Really found its voice! Sounds like one of those annoying squeaky toys! haha


-Our hot tub just arrived this morning, and I’m anxious to try it out! This morning is one of those where I got out of bed feeling like I’d been beaten in my sleep! It would have been nice if I could have had the tub this morning! I am SO EXCITED!!!!


-We have started doing a bit of school at our house. nothing too vigorous, just a little here and there. Kiera was SO excited to get going, I figured it was a good way to start school out nice and slow so they dont get overwhelmed.


-I harvested most of our garden a couple days ago. Pulled all the carrots, unions, garlic, and beets. (I’ve never seen beets SO FREAKING HUGE in my life!) So we are heading to my dads today to bottle & pickle my beats! Mmmmm!

All I have left in my garden now is tomatoes, potatoes, and lettuce. Oh, and I can’t forget the weeds,… my weeds are thriving SO well this year! They are so easy to maintain too, maybe next year I’ll only plant the weeds!


Well, thats it for now.
Tah tah

July 30th -Aug 2nd we headed up to Moon Lake to have another Barber Family Reunion. It was Beautiful up there! Only thing we didn’t like was the buffalo gnats! (We cal them vampire gnats) You don’t feel them bite, but you just notice that you are bleeding. And with me, 2 days later, that bite swells up and starts to itch!
Oh Well!



Wednesday was just our family and Chet & Rachel’s family, it was nice to be able to spend some one-on-one with them the first night. We have gotten so close to them from the summer’s they have spent here, that it was wonderful just chilling together!


We did lots of fishing! On thursday we rented a boat and spent part of the day taking turns going out for rides, and we tried some fishing from the boat, with absolutely no fish!!! I took a turn driving the boat, & I didnt even get the chance to leave Mark on the shore as I drove off laughing, aahh well, maybe next year!! LOL
We had been there a month before that, with friends, and the lake since then had gone down a WHOLE LOT!!! WE drove to the damn to fish, and I said “This doesn’t look like the right place, it doesn’t look like where we were a month ago”. But it was! Apparently they have a spill way where they drain the lake during the summer to help water the farmers crops. And in the 4 days we were there, the water was still dropping at a pretty significant rate!! I think from the day we arrived to the day we left, it dropped about 4 feet. How we measured that was, we had propped up these rocks to hold fishing poles up, and when we were fishing on the last day we noticed those rocks we’d arranged right next to the water line, was 4 feet back on the beach, not right next to the water.
And for a lake that big to be able to notice that much water had been drained,…that is TONS of water they are draining!!!!
CRAZY!



We spent much of our time at the beautiful sandy beach. The kids would play in the soft beach sand and cover themselves in mud, so they could go out into the lake and rinse off and start all over again!
All the kids, and even some of the adults, had the most fun digging holes and making mud pits to play in!
Kathen, my nephew, decided he was going to get a full bath in the mud! So he laid down and bathed himself in mud!
(And to think, you can spend Hundreds of dollard to go to a day spa and have a mud bath, and here, it was FREE!)
His dad came up after a while and painted his face with the mud! He soon became camouflaged! His dad took pictures of him, with 2 kids behind him. And he thought it was hilarious to show people the picture and say “Can you see all 3 kids?” And everyone said “There is only 2 kids in this one”. Chet would just laugh and say “Look harder!”

On Friday we all got together around the camp fire: Chets family, Wendy’s family, Matt and his foster son, Camile and her daughter, Lori and her family, Kim & levi, Glen & his family, Mom and Dad, and Mark & I and our girls. We had a little program of sorts, that was very cute! There were many songs performed, and Preston, one of our nephews performed an AMAZING drum solo! WOW!!! GO PRESTON!!! And Matt’s foster son Joe showed us his guitar talents! That was neat! Wendy & Carter also played their guitar and sang! Always fun to listen to them! They sing so well together! Chets kids all sang a Mercy Me song called “Rise up”. They decided while sitting there, that they wanted to sing something too. So Chet asked if I wanted to play a Mercy me song while they sang it. This was a song I was learning and no where near perfected yet, but it was such a blast listening to his kids, and Savannah, singing that song! it was Adorable!
Heather was real cute, she gathered the kids at the beginning and at the end of the program and helped them sing primary songs! Which is really sweet, cause she has been put in as primary song director in her ward, and she is working hard to learn all those songs that she had never heard before she got her calling! GO HEATHER!

And while this was going on the kids were sitting in the dirt, and they decided to start playing with the dirt. Well, Kiera started painting her arms, then her legs, then her face with this dirt! She was soon looking like child of another nationality! It was HILARIOUS!
Kiera really took to heart the saying I have said for years “the dirtier you are, the Funner you’ve had!”
( We took pictures, and Mark will post them on the site soon!)


On Saturday we got up early and went down to the Damn to fish, just Mark and I with the girls! in about 2 1/2 hours we caught 14 fish! Just 2 fish shy of catching our limit! It was such a blast!!! That afternoon we all got together and cooked TONS of food to share! We cooked 20 fish that afternoon! (GO MARK!)
We had all kinds of wonderful food! Pork chops, chicken, fish, hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, fruit, salad, and much more!! It was GREAT!
Thanks To EVERYONE! That was such a FANTASTIC smörgåsbord!

BIG Thanks for everyones hard work! This was one of the most fun, & most memorable family reunions I’ve ever had!!!!

My Camping List



http://ctremail.com/services/campingList

I have been thinking about posting just a blurp about how my health has been, for anyone who is curious. (If your not, just skip this one!)


I have several people ask me “what is fibromyalgia?” So I thought I would attempt to answer what its like for me. (Because everyone with fibro seem to experience it just a bit different, in either severity of pain, or amount of symptoms)


(I’m not adding this to sound like I’m complaining, cause I’m not trying to. I Just wanted to help others understand the condition.)


First off in the book I’m reading it explains what fibromyalgia means.
“Fibromyalgia is a form of muscular rheumatism characterized by tenderness, soreness, pain, and muscle spasms.Fibro- means fiber; my-means muscle; algia means pain.”


Have you ever gone to the gym, and worked out real hard? Then a day or 2 later your muscles are achy & stiff and you think to yourself “What did I do to myself”?


Well, this is how I feel most days, and its not from working out every day, cause I dont.
Some days are much better then others, so…good days, & bad days. And kind of like when you have over done it at the gym, if you get up and start exersizing lightly when your sore, it helps you feel a bit better! Thats how I am. So I have tried to go walking every day since I got diagnosed, and it has helped a Great deal! But on bad days, it is so hard to get out and go walking because some times it really hurts!


A word on sleep….sleeping is a very difficult thing for me! If I lay on my side, my hip feels like its severely bruised, and my shoulders start throbbing and hurting really bad! I cant sleep on my stomach because my neck injury doesn’t allow me to have my head in that position. So I lay on my back, which isn’t my favorite position to sleep, nor is it the most comfortable. Because of that, falling asleep usually takes a while! And I sleep so lightly that when the girls roll over in bed, the creek of the bed wakes me up & I feel WIDE AWAKE! That is how I sleep all night! Then I wake up, achy, and feeling as though I have just been beaten while I slept!

My shoulders, neck and down in between my shoulder blades usually ache. Each day for me, as far as pain, and where the pain is, has been so differnt that its hard to say what its like. My shoulders and that whole area aches, and I find when its late, and when I’v had too much sugar they ache REALLY bad! Its best described like when you have a really bad case of the flue, and your hole body just hurts. Thats the best way I can describe that feeling! At times like this I take ibuprofen 800, and that seems to help a lot. One intersting thing is when it aches really bad in my shoulders, it seems to spread down into my arms as well!


My arms, previously thought to be tendinitis, is also part of the fibro.

Its harder for me to describe the problem in my arms…so bear with me as I attempt it.

Starting at my shoulders, and going down into my forearms, a light touch is quite painful! (my husband knows this, cause I frequently ask him to rub my arms and with every touch its “OUCH!”)
With all the muscles in my arms sore, and tight, they pull on the muscles and tendins in my wrists, which then make hand movements, and pressure, excruciatingly painful!
So for example, lifting up a child can be not only hard, but painful, and it usually aggravates it, if it isn’t currently hurting. Carrying a laundry basket has the same effect. Some times, picking up the dish washer soap and pouring it in hurts!
With this, and everything else, I have some days that are not as bad as others. And some days I just wanna cry!



My hips are another very painful part of my condition. I feel as though my hip is bruised all over, or has been shot with a gun, and its trying to heal. (that is the best way I can describe that) So walking, though good for me, can Really hurt! But the walking usually seems to decrease the severity of the pain there.
Stretching, like in yoga, has been one of the Best things to help the pain here! And actually the yoga I have tried, which is very easy stretching, (not any of those complex funky positions that only a double jointed acrobat could do) has done the most good for me! I find that when I am able to do yoga stretching that the next day I’m having a better day! So I am convinced of the good that it can do, not just for me, but for anyone and everyone!



Next I’ll just briefly mention my tummy. This condition very often includes irritable bowel. My doctor explained it this way: A “normal” person without I.B. wont feel an air bubble moving through their intestines, or feel solids going through it. But someone with I.B. can usually not only feel it, but it tends to be quite painful! If a “normal” person’s body doesn’t react well to certain foods, like dairy, they might feel bloated, or slight discomfort. But then someone with I.B. will REALLY feel it!

Tiredness is another lovely part of this condition, and honestly I have found if I just keep moving, keep myself busy, and not allow myself to sit very long,then I am not usually effected very much by the fatigue. But if I do sit down, like to watch a movie with the kids, then I get hit with this fatigue that makes me feel as if I havent slept in 2 days! Its a Terrible feeling!


Treatment for this is a difficult thing. Because there has not been a definite “cause” of fibromyalgia, it is tricky to treat. The doctors start out by treating the sleep, because when your body is deprived of sleep your body doesnt produce enough of a chemical called “somatomedin-C”.
“This chemical plays a part in repairing the muscles. So people with fibromyalgia have muscles that are tighter and less flexable then most people…and the muscles would be more subject to microtrauma”
(taken from the book ‘Fibromyalgia a comprehensive approach’)



My doctor is having me try excersize and muscle relaxers at night to see if that helps. And honestly, the muscle relaxers have done a little, but not much.

My FANTASTIC husband, Mark, has been so wonderful! He has given me countless massages, and has tried so hard to help me in any way he can! I have had 2 doctors tell me that a hot tub would really help improve my health. So, my WONDERFUL Mark, has ordered a hot tub from Costco!
I’m Very excited to try out this new “therapy”!


Kudos to you Mark!

I know you cant sympathize with my pain, but I think I’m a good enough pain for the both of us! hahahaha :)
But seriously, I know at times its hard to understand me, and what I’m going through. I am very proud of how sweet you are, and how you have stepped up to the plate and just really taken care of me!
Your WONDERFUL!!!