The Eyes Have It....

I have thought and thought about what my New Year's resolution should be...I know, it's January 5th so I better get a move on because the year is movin' on! There were so many things I could resolve to do...or not to do but nothing I thought of felt right until today when it struck me. My New Year's resolution is...

To stop wearing mascara on my bottom lashes....I am tired of crying it off. :)

Try My Reins and My Heart...

Today was fast Sunday. It has never been easier for me to fast than it was today because it was for Tim. My emotions wouldn't let me stand to bear my testimony but Tim was able to -- he's a rock in the midst of all of this -- or so he would have everyone believe. :)

It is amazing to me how intact Tim's sense of humor is. Sometimes I laugh with him at the things he says and other times I cry because the the sting of reality is just too much.
He's trying to tame his humor for my sake but part of me doesn't want to him to do that either. I don't know what I want other than for my aching heart to be eased.

Like yesterday when Tim went to get his haircut....I stayed in the car and read my scriptures (something I so needed to be able to find some comfort) and when he came back he said that Lowell, his barber, started cutting his hair and making conversation Lowell said, "So, was 2008 good to you and are you looking forward to a better 2009?" Well, what does someone diagnosed with cancer only a few weeks ago say to that?

Tim thought then said, "Well, 2008 wasn't too bad until I found out a few weeks ago that I have cancer. I have to start radiation and chemo so this is probably the last haircut I am going to have for a while!"

Okay...it was funny and I did laugh but it is also terribly sad that a 51 year old, totally healthy man has cancer.

Today, in testimony meeting Tim stood up and talked about "changes" in a continuation of the testimony before his. He then said that a few weeks ago he found out he had cancer. He said that that meant radiation and chemo for him and he thought that maybe it was Heavenly Father's way of saying he didn't like his haircut! Okay...it was funny and everyone laughed. Tim copes better when he can make people laugh. And we do need to laugh. If we don't laugh we will cry....he will cry.

While reading scriptures I have found several verses that were comforting....

Psalm 26:2 "Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; try my reins and my heart."

I found this to be a very beautiful verse. It is an invitation for the Lord to examine us, to prove us to see if we will do what He asks. "Try my reins"..... reins are used to direct and control. It's as if asking the Lord to try me to see if I will follow His direction....And my heart, will it follow Him? Yes, it will. Mine will and Tim's will. I have no doubt. It's just that there is tremendous pain in going through the experiences we must pass through to try our reins and our hearts.

Proverbs 24:10 "If thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small."

Wow...neither Tim nor I want to be found with small strength. We want to be found with great strength, and hope, and faith, and love. It is a refining process. My goal is to not go through the refining process kicking and screaming. I just don't know how to do that yet. Well, yes I do....

Proverbs 3:5 & 6 "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy path."

That is how to do it....this is where practice makes perfect. I think we are in for a lot of practice.

Bluegrass Towing....

Last night we went to bed around midnight (we've had far too many late nights lately!) and at about 1:00 a.m. Tim's cell phone rang. It was Jordan. He had been with friends seeing a late movie and after dropping kids off he decided he would go get gas before he came home. He took a back road to get over to the gas station and was going a little too fast on the wet, narrow, curvy road and he ended up in the ditch. He couldn't drive out of it because it was too steep and he was hung up on the fence that he slide into.

You can see by the pictures I took (yes, my camera goes everywhere with me!) that he narrowly missed hitting that post that is behind his car. Thankfully the fence wasn't a wooden slat fence that is so common to see around here because that is so dangerous to hit as the the wood can go right through the windshield. This fence was a large grid, heavy gauge wire fence. If he had slid off the road about 10 yards before he did it would have been so much worse. It was much steeper, rockier and would have caused a lot of damage and probably hurt him.

When we got to him the farmer who owns the land where the fence keeps his cows was there with Jordan. He told us that the fence has been hit in the same place multiple times and three of those times were recently! Some of the posts were STILL on the ground from the last time it was hit!

It took a few hours for the tow truck to arrive. It was thundering and lightening and pouring down rain while we waited. The rain stopped just before the tow truck came. The car was pulled out of the ditch and towed back to our house where we have to wait to examine the car to see if there is any damage that is not visible, like to the underside of the car. There were no new scratches, or dents in the car (amazing!) except for the passengers side mirror was ripped off because it was caught in the fence. There were some horrible noises coming from the car when it was pulled up out -- groaning as if fighting the pull of the wench that was doing it's job to rescue it from the ditch.

It was a long night. We finally fell back into bed at almost 3:30 and I heard Tim groan when I asked what time he had to get up...... 4:45 was his reply. Not a lot of sleep. Definitely a nap after church was on the to-do list.

We are thankful that Jordan wasn't hurt. We know it could have been much worse. It made us realize one more time how quickly things can change. We are very happy that in this instance the outcome was good.

Skating Into the New Year...

I've mentioned before that on Christmas Eve day we used to take our kids roller skating....the first 3 anyway. As the years passed and we got older we decided that going to a movie was safer than being lifted up off the floor on free spinning wheels. And, we didn't limp the next day. So our Christmas Eve day movie tradition was born and not a Christmas Eve too soon!

Since our roller skating days were with the first three kids, the last three really haven't known that tradition so don't really know how to skate either. Call us bad parents but that is just the way it is. Often it seems that our first three kids had different parents than the last three did. I haven't decided if that is a good thing or bad yet.


So our non-roller skating girls had free passes to roller skate over their Christmas break from school. Today is the last day they are valid so we HAVE to go....right? And we do.....








Their skates are
laced and they're
ready to go!

Poor Annah. The second she stepped on the floor she went down! This was her first time skating. Abigail fared a bit better (she's been a few more times) but it certainly wasn't the evening the girls had anticipated. :(

But the the lights on the floor made for some cool pictures as did the skaters on the floor flying by. :)

And the best part of the night was to see the big smiles on the girl's faces when we asked if they would like to ditch roller skating go to McDonald's to get a shake. :)

And They Lived Happily Ever After.....

This sign is something that I recently bought because it just spoke to me. It is what I want most in life...to live happily ever after. I want the cancer dragon that is threatening us to be gone so that we can go on living our lives with confidence that all is well. I remember a talk by Neal A. Maxwell where he talked about how we tend to look at our trials and say, "Why me?" when we really need to ask, "Why NOT me?"

Our days have felt as though they are being lived in slow motion -- each day seeming to take so long to turn from dawn to dusk. It's a difficult thing to know that the battle is raging in Tim's body and we still have more time to wait before someone can begin to call in the cavalry of radiation and chemo and whatever else is necessary to defeat the dragon. We have to go on living our lives and doing what we do because life will not wait while we want to sit in a chair and just stare at the wall or while crying in the shower. There are things to be done, kids to take care of, dinners to be made, games to be played, pep talks to be given, jokes to be told. And yet with all of that, there are also tears to be cried, fears to be spoken, worries to be calmed, prayers to be prayed, blessings to hold on to. It's all wrapped up in everyday life....life that goes on with or without cancer. Cancer doesn't care what our plans are for today or tomorrow or for the years to come. Cancer doesn't wait for us to be ready for it -- that doesn't ever happen.

I remember being riveted to a show on the TLC cable channel called Crazy, Sexy Cancer about a young woman, Kris Carr, who had a rare, incurable cancer. They made a documentary of her ups and downs of living with her cancer. She is still alive today -- 5 years after being diagnosed. I remember being so struck by a comment she made and I have never forgotten it. She said, "Cancer wasn't killing me, it was pushing me to live." Maybe it was meant to be that I never forget it because we would need it -- who knew at the time that cancer would touch our lives? The beauty in that statement made me cry then just as it does now. I so want that for Tim and I and our family. I want this dragon named Cancer to push us to be better, do better and love what we have.

I love the phrase that David B. Haight shared that his mother would always say, "Come what may, and love it." I don't love cancer but perhaps I can learn to love better through the trials that will come from battling the dragon.

Reflections...2008

With the start of a New Year it seems newspapers and magazines like to give a "year in review" -- looking back on the year remembering the highlights and happenings. I decided that I wanted to do the same for the Valenta's year....
January

• Young Tim enrolls at the University of Kentucky
• I have a birthday
• Lisa (our future daughter-in-law) has her 23rd birthday the same day as mine :)

February

• Abigail wins the county 4-H speech competition for her age group and gets to go to summer camp for free!
• Lisa visits from Canada
• Jacob turns 14

April

• Lisa comes for a visit from Canada
• Tim the younger turns 22
• Tim and Lisa get engaged over Conference weekend
• I begin teaching the 3rd Sunday in Relief Society

May

• Jordan turns 18

June

• Jordan graduates high school
• Abigail goes to 4-H summer camp
• Tim and I celebrate 23 years married

July

• Jacob goes to Scout Camp
• Jacob goes to EFY in Virginia
• Jacob goes white water rafting for youth conference

August

• Abigail turns 11

• The Brook Family arrives from Canada for the Brook/Valenta wedding
• Tim and Lisa get married in the Louisville Temple on Friday, August 22nd
• Tim and Lisa's reception is on Saturday, August 23rd
• Jordan moves into the dorms at the University of Kentucky on August 24th -- the day after Tim and Lisa's reception
• Tim and Lisa go to Disney World for the honeymoon

September

• Andrew turns 21
• Tim (the elder) has a birthday
• Relief Society Broadcast - Elder Uchtdorf encourages us to be more creative
• I begin my blog -- my way of being more creative :)

October

• We take a trip back to NY over Fall Break from school
• Annah turns 9

November

• Richard G. Scott comes to our Stake Conference and I get to meet him
• Thanksgiving

December

• We had our first snow day of winter -- school was cancelled
• Tim is diagnosed with tongue cancer
• We spend the last day of 2008 in the company of good friends :)
  

While 2008 ended on a very somber note with Tim's diagnosis, our hopes for 2009 are high.

"I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto to the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them." (1 Nephi 3:7)

We look to the Lord to prepare the way before us in our trials and depend upon Him because He promised He would be there with us and that He would fight our battles.

"... for I will go before your face, I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you , to bear you up." (D&C 84:88)

"...I will fight your battles." (D&C 105:14)

No matter what happens in 2009, any way you look at it, we are still on the winning team!

Happy New Year....Where's Julie?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We had John and Julie and their 5 kids over for our New Year's celebration and what a fun time!

We played one of our favorite games called Nertz that we play with Rook cards. We began playing games with John and Julie shortly after they moved here a few years ago. Tim and I thought it would be a good time to teach them the fast moving game of Nertz just so we could finally beat somebody at the game! So far we've succeeded! :) But, I am not sure for how long as John had his high score of 78 - that's a record...for HIM! Tim was thought to be the winner early on with his 107 score but that was so brief that I don't think it should even count! Now, Julie was impressive with her...69, was it, Julie? Okay...that doesn't sound good but considering each time Julie plays it's like her first time, it was great (she needs a refresher course every time...we love you Julie!) I was declared the WINNER (YESSSS!) and it was a good thing because John was threatening to stay as long as it took for him to win the game but I really think it's unreasonable for him to be here till summer. :)

Julie gave me a lovely New Year's gift.....she surprised me with pictures of herself and what a lovely sight...... She was in the frig, in the living room, in the hallway, on the bulletin board, in my shower...She was ALL over the house! :)

Here's to a New Year of good friends, happy times, and winning Nertz games!

And John........



Did you think I wasn't going to notice that you took a picture of yourself with my camera???? BWHAHAHAHA!