A Trip to Houston

Jason's Uncle Richard passed away last week after an 18 month long battle with liver cancer.  We were able to meet him and spend time with him at the Cox family reunion last August.  He had a very special connection with little Lila, who is named after his mother.  I had some good talks with him and was very grateful to have that time with him. 

The funeral was outside of Houston.  Jason's dad and family are all from Pasadena/Deer Park Texas.  Jason's Aunt Pam, on his mom's side, also lives in Houston and we were able to stay with her.  She was the perfect hostess, along with her husband, Craig.  I was almost scared to have anybody ever come stay with me after how well we were treated! 

The drive was about 4.5 hours.  Not too bad.  For some kids.  Lila has been struggling lately.  Oh my.  Lots and lots and lots of crying if I am not holding her.  Its much like she was when she was 2 or 3 months old.  If she's attached to me, I can get stuff done, but otherwise, forget it.  But now she weighs about 26 pounds and its not so easy to do dishes or vacuum with her on my hip. 

Anywho...I digress.  Back to the funeral.  It was good for us to go.  I met many members of the Cox family for the first time.  Guy and Debbie flew in and stayed at Pam's as well so we were thrilled to have our grandparents around for a short while.

Richard was the oldest of the five in the Guy Leon Cox fam.  Here are the other 4: John, Geneva, Guy Taylor, and Donny. 

Richard was buried next to his parents--my children's great grand-parent--Guy Leon and Lila.

  We made Lila take a photo near her Great Grandmother's grave.  It broke her little heart.

 And I realized only now as I posted this photo that Adelaide shares the same birthday and her GG Lila.

 On the way home we stopped at the Sam Houston statue.  Miles said, "That's a big BIIIIG Grampa!!!"   I thought that was a pretty adequate description.  As one of my sisters once noted, after seeing my mission pictures, "There sure are a lot of really BIG things in Texas." 

I haven't had time or been up for much blogging lately but was glad our family had the opportunity to go support our extended family and get away for a little weekend.  On the way back home we got into a famous TX rainstorm.  It was suddenly so bad that we literally could not see a foot in front of us and had to pull off the side of the road and wait for about 15 minutes for it to pass.  Which it did.  Because this is Texas and that's what the weather does.

Smoothies/Maybe a Little too Honest

This summer has turned out to be rather dark for me so far.  The anxiety that was only in the mornings in May got worse and worse until Winston Churchill's "black dog" was once more upon me.  I am not in the really dark place I was 6 years ago, but I have struggled daily with anxiety and moments of despair.  I am taking some medication for the anxiety but it doesn't help a whole lot.  It does take the edge off, for which I'm grateful.  I guess I'd say, it takes away my irritability.  I am able to function and force myself to do things with the kids and I'm not constantly on edge.  However, I am mostly sick inside and have to force myself to eat.  I am now on a new antidepressant.  I took the 9th dose tonight.  I know it can take several weeks to kick in.  So far no noticeable changes.  I don't know exactly how the Black Dog found me again.  I think a lot of things.  But mostly I think that probably starting with some difficult emotional things starting in March, then moving and the sheer amount of work and stress involved, coupled with all of the change brought it on. The change was good and is right.  But its still a lot to take in.  Everything my eyes see is different, smells are different, sounds are VERY different.  It sounds like we live in a rain forest around here for some reason.  Cool but really really loud at night outside.  New ward. New friends to make. New church callings. New school to learn about. New changes and stressed out kids.  And then the fact that...what a blessing we bought a house and can now plant some roots!!!...but...wait...planting roots?  That means I'm not going home.  That means this is my home.  Oh no...my parents...my sisters...my mountains...not going back...maybe it just tipped the scales in my brain.

But anyway...one good thing that has come of it is that since I'm unable to even force myself to chew on anything and have no appetite at all (at least until evening.  Usually I can eat some dinner), I have begun SMOOTHING.  Yes, smoothing.  My mom suggested I start it and I knew just who to go to for advice.  My brother Tony is the Smoothy-king.  I avoided the smoothing for quite some time because I thought it might be too expensive, time consuming, or just plain gross.  Well...wrong wrong and wrong.  The first one I made, Jason said, "I bet that tastes like death."  I gave him some and...what do you know...he smiled and asked me to make enough for him the following morning.   Frozen fruit, come to find out (if you buy it at Sam's Club) is actually much less expensive than fresh fruit.  Fresh spinach, kale, cabbage, and carrots are not expensive at all.  I just chop up everything and put it in the freezer, then pull it out, throw it in the blender and...what do you know...even when I don't want to eat at all, I can swallow this stuff, keep it down, and I actually think it tastes good.

If I have fresh stuff around, I'll add that, too.  Today's smoothie included lots of spinach, kale, purple cabbage, carrots, berry mix (blue, black and raspberry), other fruit mix (peaches, strawberries, honeydew) and a banana.  All that mixed with water and just a tiny amount of Agave sweetener.  Breakfast and lunch.  Easy peasy.  Brain get better pleasy.