Blessings and Trials

Lots of interesting things have been happening in the last week. My goodness, when it rains it pours!

Sio started the job hunt on Monday, filled out applications on Tuesday, and turned them in Wednesday. By Wednesday afternoon, he had 2 interviews scheduled. Thankfully, Thursday he was hired. He's going to be working at Miller's. Not sure if that's a step up or down from Icon, but beggers can't be choosers, right? He will actually be getting more hours, better pay, and WAY better insurance rates. We used to pay $150/month, which I thought was a way good deal. Now we'll only be paying $60/month. Score!

At the same time of all this great news, we got some not so great news. I had to go into the doctor on Wednesday for follow-up blood tests and a physical (which was 2 weeks earlier than planned since our insurance ends on the 31st). While the doctor was examining my throat, she found a lump under my jaw line, near my ear. She asked me what it was, I had no idea. I remember noticing it a few months ago, but thought nothing of it. She was worried about it and I had an ultrasound done.

After worrying like a mad woman for a day, I called the doctor to find the results. They had gotten them, but she didn't have a chance to look at them yet. The nurse tells me that "there will definitely need to be some follow up, but the doctor will look over them and give me a call". What?!?! You don't say that to a person that is already worried and not tell them what's going on! Then that gives you more ideas to think about and worry about. Geez.

After calling back twice, I finally got to talk to the doctor. They are not sure what it is yet. There is significant inflamation and swelled lymphnodes, they think. I guess normal ones are supposed to be less than 10mm and I have a clump of 3 or so that are 2cm! They are hoping that some anti-biotics will kill it. I will then go in for another ultrasound and if they haven't gotten smaller, they want to do a needle biopsy. I'm kinda freaking out. It could be anything, hopefully it's nothing.

I also found out that my iron levels are ridiculously lower than they were last time, and that is not supposed to happen. It's only been a month since I had them tested last. This means that I could be bleeding somewhere in my body or something in my body is stealing the iron from my blood. I'm on lots of iron and that will be tested in 10 days when I go back for my ultrasound. If the iron counts don't go up, more tests!!

This all came in perfect timing with Sio losing his job and us getting our insurance cut at the end of the month. I was really worried about how everything was going to be processed. There is the COBRA law that lets me continue the same coverage we had, but for $471/month! Luckily, we only have to pay that ridiculous amount for February since the waiting period for Sio's new insurance will only be a month. The best news is that they can't discriminate against pre-existing conditions, which completely saves our bacon!

The really great news is that Sio is getting the Priesthood this Sunday! I'm so excited. It puts us one step closer to the temple and I can't wait! My family is coming and we're going to have some yummy food and hang out. We haven't seen each other in a month or so, so I'm really excited.

Hopefully this lump turns out to be nothing and that everything will work out. I know the insurance switch is going to be a nightmare, but I'm just glad that I have it at a time like this after going without it for so long.

It's official...I hate the economy.

So, we found out earlier last week that Sio was going to lose his job. They gave him 2 months and said that would be the end of it. They are down-sizing a lot. Turns out they didn't want to wait that long after all. They ended up laying him off a few days later on Thursday.

This came as a huge blow, since this year we are trying extra hard to save any extra money that we might have for Tonga. It also sucks because we finally had insurance and I was finally able to start going to the doctor for my medical problems. Now we have until the end of January and it's over with.

I figured hard times would come, not only because of the economy, but because me and Sio are trying to get our lives together and get to the temple in 7 months. Seems that the adversary always tries harder when you try harder. I knew it wasn't going to be easy, I just wish the trials didn't come in this form. I'm just crossing my fingers and praying that he finds a new job soon and that we won't have to feel like we have to start selling our possessions off one by one.

If anyone knows of any job openings, let us know for sure. And please also keep us in your prayers.

Christmas. Family Reunion. New Years. Birthday. pheww.

It's been almost a month since I posted. I haven't really felt like doing it, not sure why? There has been a lot of stuff that has happened with the holidays and what not, so this is your warning that this post is going to be loonnngg. :)

Christmas was very low key this year. I just wasn't in the spirits like I usually am. I just didn't feel like going shopping. I decorated the house a little. I didn't even make any treats for the neighbors! We decided not to do gifts for each other. We don't really need much or feel like we need to buy each other's love and it's worth going without when we are trying to save all we can for next December when we *hopefully* get to go to Tonga.

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day with my family. We don't have to family hop on holidays obviously since his parents are in Tonga. It was really fun to see all the family. We did the traditional playing games and eating junk food all night long. We always play Monopoly and this year we got "The Christmas Story" themed one, complete with bunny suit and all. We got a nice starter kit and a 72-hour kit for our food storage.

We got snowed in at my parent's house with the crazy storm (mostly due to them threatening us with our lives that we couldn't leave until it got better) that happened on Christmas. We didn't give much of a fight and got to hang out another day with the fam doing absolutely nothing. It was great.

The week after Christmas we had a "Devenport Family Reunion." Reason for the quotations being that what we do for family reunions doesn't really count, I guess. They happen whenever my Uncle John's family decides to come down from Alaska (which they did because most of their kids and grandkids live in Utah now and they came to visit for Christmas). My dad's other brother, Uncle Jim (a.k.a. Germ), then decides to come up from New Mexico and we all get together. This usually entails food, politic talks, and catching up on everything we missed in each other's lives for the last few years. We spent a couple hours eating yummy food, then we had to drive back for work the next day.

Our New Years was very low-key as well. We stopped by Sarah's "party" (don't cry Sawah :)) for a little while and then stopped and rented a movie on the way home. Got back just in time to get settled, watch the countdown on TV and get a kiss, then watched our movie. Well, Sio watched it, I fell asleep about 30 minutes into it. Oops. We then spent New Year's Day doing absolutely nothing all day long and being lazy and it was fabulous!

On the other hand, the birthday didn't start out so well. I had to get up and work all day. Then, we decided to drive down to my parent's house that night (cause Sio was going to get a little help with the birthday shopping from the madre). We ended up driving down there in another snow storm! It freakin' sucked! It took forever to get anywhere and the husband stresses me out when he drives. ugh. Our car then informed us that it had low tire pressure. Grand - we decided to keep driving. Then, our heater decides to almost stop working. It was blowing, but now blowing cold-ish air and not doing a thing to defrost the windows, making it difficult to see. We had to keep wiping at the windows and rolling and unrolling to wipe the outside. My window decides to fall and crash into the door of my car!! It fell off the track while we were driving and wouldn't go back. We had to pull over and attempt to fix it. It wouldn't work at all, so my husband got on the passenger side with his coat covering the window and I attempted to drive while both us tried not to freeze to death.

We finally got to my sister's house, but still had to book it back to make it to dinner before all the restaurants closed for the night. Not much was open...so we ended up going to some place called "Crazy Buffet" which I found out interprets to "you have to be crazy to eat here because we serve mini octopus in about 10 different ways and shouldn't even be allowed to be open to the public for fear of killing people off or starting a mini human-octopus race (a.k.a. The Humopus people)" So, so gross! I managed to find some fruit and hard-boiled eggs that didn't look too hideous. I'm just glad I came out of it alive!

We were supposed to do my birthday and my bro's birthday on Sunday, but it got moved to Saturday. We all went to eat at the "Happy Sumo" for some sushi and stuff. Good thing they had something besides sushi because I was still gagging over the mini octopus from the night before!! I had some tasty - and safe! chicken teriyaki with some veggies. It was really good and the restaurant atmosphere was really cool. It was kinda loud, so I didn't get a chance to talk to everyone, but we had yummy food and opened presents. I got some really cute girl clothes! yay!!

We made the trek to my mom and dad's house so my dad could help us fix the window. We had to drive with a blanket over the window opening. Luckily I got a really cute crocheted beanie and mittens to keep me warm while we drove. We ended up having to tape up the window until we can get it fixed. On the way home back to Smithfield, the tape wasn't adhering to the window because it was so blasted cold outside and it started flapping all over and coming off!! We barely made it to Harmon's grocery store before they closed and before the window went crashing down again. We found some extra sticky tape and it worked wonderfully the rest of the way home.

Pheww. Now it's Sunday. We just spent a relaxing day at church and taking naps and hanging out. I'm almost over the sickness. Oh! And between all the holiday madness I have been going to the doctor. I'm on meds now and hopefully will get this disease straightened out! It has been going really well so far. I have to go back in February for an update.

I'm glad the holidays are over! They were fun, but they are always stressful. Now we can get back into the normal swing of things. Whatever normal is...