I always love a good deal. Even before the days of buy/sell/trade sites, my mom and I would go to garage sales on Friday afternoons in Kearney. That's how I furnished my entire first apartment with Tyler, and I did it without ever spending over $200. Most of those furnishings are long gone now, but my love for bargains remains the same. You can find so many amazing things, if you're willing to put in a little elbow grease. Tyler and I enjoy going to garage sales on Saturday mornings. He scored a nice little fishing boat with a trolling motor for $50 once (the man-find of a lifetime), and now he's hooked; although he's usually disappointed in the lack of "man sales." During one of my excursions with my mom, we stumbled across an antique hoosier cabinet for $100. It was in pretty sad shape, but the bones were still good. I thought it was a good deal, so I bought it. This was my freshman year of college, with absolutely no place to put it! Mom agreed to store it until I found a buyer to flip it, or until I refinished it. Two summers ago, I finally tackled the project. The original white paint on the bottom had bubbled up and was not salvageable. The top had been painted many times, and the only decent looking part of the whole thing was the cream and green colored enamel top. I stripped off the layers of paint, (discovered the original fruit decals on the doors) gave it a light sanding, and painted it a gingerbread brown with black hardware. It makes a perfect place to store my plants, Instant Pot, and empty canning jars before they're taken downstairs. Here it is now, as it sits in my kitchen: About a year ago, I located an antique Eastlake dresser nearby for $20. I rushed right over to snatch it up! I'm so in love with the Eastlake style- if I lived in a large Queen Anne, it'd be filled with it. This dresser was missing one of the teardrop ebony drawer pulls, but was otherwise complete. She'd had a long, hard life. I scraped foam adhesive strips off of the side, the top had water rings, and the drawers had cotton batting glued to the inside. Yuck. I didn't see any way around the cotton batting, so I did my best to scrape it off, and used mod-podge to line the drawers with a pretty yellow floral fabric. I shined up the finish with orange oil, but those stubborn rings just won't disappear on the top. I chose not to refinish this piece, but to just clean it up and love it as it sits. Tyler made a matching mirror to make the look complete. At least it looks presentable now. When we went to Lincoln about a month ago, I located the matching ebony drawer pull. Connor's Architectural Antiques had an entire little shoe-box full of all kids of ebony teardrops to match the late 1800s dressers. When I got home, I realized it was just the slightest bit different, but I guarantee you I'm the only one that can tell. ;) If I was to ever quit teaching, it'd be to go into business with my dad to run an antique shop. I just love finding old, tired pieces of furniture and bringing life back into them. Maybe someday, but for now I'm pretty happy where I'm at, finding my bargains for fun.
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Tyler and I drove to Omaha yesterday for his semi-annual check-up scan. His scan came back stable, with no evidence of tumor growth, thank God. Whenever we leave the doctor's office on those check-up days, I feel as if a 1,000 lb. weight has been lifted off of me. Tyler's tumor is a type of glioma, which means it will rear its ugly head again someday. I pray that day is many, many years down the road. This December, he will be 5 years out, so he will get to start getting his scans on an annual basis instead. In my philosophy class I'm taking this semester, we were tasked with writing a paper of a defining experience - something that has shaped us to who we are today. When I read the syllabus, I knew instantly what I was going to write about. I whipped the paper out in less than an hour. My favorite thing about having my own blog is having the platform to share my excitements, my struggles, and my feelings with everyone. Here, is my defining experience: December 28, 2014 – 2:30AM. While this date is nearing upon 5 years ago, I still remember it just as clear as if it were yesterday. We had found out that we were pregnant with our first son, Easton, the week before, and were excitedly making plans for that. We were on Christmas vacation. The Huskers had played in the Holiday bowl earlier before we had gone to bed, and it was a normal night. All of the sudden, I felt Tyler sleep talking, or having a bad dream. Sometimes Tyler talks in his sleep. I enjoy hearing Tyler talk in his sleep – some of the things he says make me laugh. However, when I woke up a bit more, I realized that I was wrong this time. Tyler wasn’t talking in his sleep, or tossing and turning like I had thought. He was shouting out; convulsing; my young, healthy husband of two years, was having a grand-mal seizure. I called 911, because I was scared and didn’t know what to do. The town whistle went off, and I had two police officers in my bedroom within 4 minutes of my call. I was so relieved to have someone else who was conscious in my home with me. Tyler’s seizure lasted a couple minutes, but it took him a good 15 minutes before he fully came out of it. The EMTs took him to Kearney, where he was checked out at Good Samaritan Hospital. By 4:30AM we had a diagnosis no 26 year-old man or his young wife wants to hear – my husband had a brain tumor. They were sending the on-call neurosurgeon in to talk to us, and Tyler was admitted to the hospital. Surgery was scheduled two days later to have it removed. Talk about turning your life upside down. To go from planning for a newborn, to hospital beds and risky surgeries?! Tyler’s surgery went well, and the surgeon removed as much as he could. A few days later when Tyler was more alert, we found out that the tumor was nearly as big as a tennis ball. A biopsy was sent to Mayo clinic, and it was found to be non-cancerous. He underwent radiation therapy less than a month later. I wish the story ended there, but I could write pages and pages of my defining experience. The extra-condensed version is that Tyler ended up getting a Staph infection, multiple other infections, and then a bout with MRSA that nearly took his life. He fought infection for over 2 years, and multiple, multiple surgeries that did nothing, until finally we went to UNMC in Omaha. They saved my husband’s life. They removed part of his skull and did an extremely complex procedure that lasted nearly 16 hours to rid the infection. He then spent nearly two years without a skull covering, because replacing the skull then was too risky for fear of infection. Finally, in September of this past year, Tyler had his final surgery in Omaha and we have since returned to our “normal” life. This defining experience has made me question. I was 24 years old that night Tyler had his seizure. I was so young, and I thought our life was absolutely perfect. Our future was so bright. We were going to be parents, we owned our home, we had two nice new vehicles, and I thought it was pretty cool that our household income was nearing the $100,000 mark. (Tyler worked construction in the summertime, and had a lot of overtime.) Wow. Just kids. Why would this happen to us? There are millions of “what if” questions that have gone through my head. This defining experience has helped me discover my truth of who I really am. It has humbled me and taught me not to take life for granted. These past 5 years we endured financial hardships and learned the value of friends and family. We make considerably less than before, but we are so much smarter with our money. My faith and relationship with God has gotten so much stronger. We expanded our family and have two beautiful, ornery sons. Most of all, my defining experience has made me reflect on these events. There is no growth without reflection. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of the hell that my husband endured. We are told that his tumor will come back some day, and he has scans every six months to check for changes. This defining experience, quite frankly, took me a long time to come to terms with. Those young kids had to grow up quickly and deal with the horror of what life threw at them. February 25, 2019 – 8:00PM. Tonight I will head to bed with a full house and a full heart. My sons will be in the room next to us. Tyler will take his anti-seizure medication before bed; his past surgeries make him more apt to repeat seizures. Before I close my eyes to drift off, I will thank God for what he has given me and pray for my family. I pray that we will have continued strength, and that I will not let any part of this defining experience fade from my memory – we’ve come too far for that. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. -Philippians 4: 6-7 Part of the fun is the journey. The past couple weeks we have been venturing out to go get some things that we'll need for our addition. Facebook Marketplace can be a magical place...and a black hole that I can so easily get sucked into. Yes, we aren't planning on starting right away, but how often do you find the old, salvaged materials that you'll need?! Well, according to my husband, I'm finding plenty. I found a salvage guy out of Hastings who had posted yellow pine trim out of a 1920s house. Hmm...that sounds familiar! I sent him a picture of our trim, and he replied that he had doors to match our house as well. Deal! Upon further inspection, I found that he also had a clawfoot tub for sale. Perfect. Tyler and I took an enclosed trailer to Hastings to pick up our haul. Easton asked us what we were doing hooked up to our town's cardboard trailer - which is also an enclosed trailer. Haha - no child, we did not steal the town's cardboard recycling trailer. Unfortunately, another lady had already beaten me to the baseboards that he had; so, I was on the search for baseboards. After more time on Marketplace, I located just what I needed/wanted - except, they were located near Ogallala. I eyed them for a couple weeks, and they hadn't had any hits yet. I told Tyler, and he talked to his brother, Trent. They were interested in making the jaunt to get the boards. Road trip! We were able to check out Lake Mac for some potential camping spots this summer, and I couldn't believe how many fishermen already had their boats out. There were even some ambitious campers! Brrrr. We drove the rugged backroads south of the lake to find our destination - an old farmhouse destined to be destroyed via practice burn. It feels good to know that other houses will get to live on through our little home. We loaded up and headed for home. Our garage is full. Correction: our garage was full before we started collecting for this adventure. Now we're just being extra thrifty with space. Do you ever have competitions on who can load the dishwasher the best? It's kind of like that. The doors and trim are piled along the wall. The baseboards are in the rafters. See that wood floor piled up near the ceiling on the above picture? That was a previous trip to Sargent - 300 sq. ft of oak hardwood. It's getting to be one giant game of Tetris.
Wives, do you ever have fun seeing just how far you can subtly push your husband's buttons? I'm on my way to pick up a vintage bathroom vanity in Holdrege after school tomorrow. |
Kathryn HollandWife. Mother. Teacher. Lifelong student. Archives
March 2022
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