This time, it’s Owen. He has had a cough for about a week that sounds pretty bad. Friday, he had a fever, so I kept him home from school. He didn’t actually seem to feel too bad, but the fever kept him home. He got better over the weekend and went to school on Monday. Monday night, however, he started complaining of his neck hurting around bedtime. I gave him some Tylenol, and he fell asleep. He woke up a few hours later screaming with a headache.
I took him to the doctor this morning. After describing all of his symptoms and examining him, the doctor asked if I had pulled any ticks off of him. I told him I got one off of him two to three weeks ago. Because of that, he took some blood to test for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. A chest x-ray showed the beginnings of pneumonia, and a strep test was positive. I was surprised at the strep, because he doesn’t have a sore throat. They put him on an antibiotic to take care of the strep and pneumonia. We will have to wait on the blood test results to know if he has Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. I don’t think he does. I’m supposed to monitor his fever, though, and watch for a rash. He already got a spotted rash on his cheeks on Saturday, but they went away. So, we’ll see.
He’s not felt too bad this evening, but he’s mostly just laid around and watched cartoons. He sat down to dinner with us, but only ate a piece of salmon. He said he didn’t feel like eating. He left the table before the rest of us were finished eating.
Look how we found him when we finished dinner…

He was sleeping like this. I opened up the lid and took this next picture…

I suppose curling up inside of an ottoman, atop a blanket, a Bible, and a Book of Common Prayer is comfortable if you are a sick, five-year-old little boy.

There is so much in my life these days that must be left unsaid. It’s not yet the time to speak of the heartbreak and joy that I’ve been living in. Now is not the time, but I’m hoping that the time will come.

I long for a day when I can sit down and bare my soul. A time to let down my hair, pull my feet up in my chair, and just talk. I want to be understood. I want to be known.

But now is not that time.

It’s not easy for someone like me to guard her every word. To analyze every story I tell…every thought I share…to make sure I don’t say too much. I like to talk. I like to share my life with those around me. I hate to be misunderstood, and I want to be known. But not now.

For now, I will share what I can. I will highlight the joys of being a mom…a friend…a person. I will tell as much as I can safely tell, and thrill at the love that comes back to me. I will embrace those that embrace me, and try not to sink over those that push me aside. I will dance when the music plays, and I will cry when the tears come. I will keep going. Keep trying. I will keep seeking to know God…to know myself…to know love. I will watch the flowers bloom in my garden. Watch my boy’s skin turn brown under the summer sun. I will count each new freckle on my daughters’ cheeks, and I will cherish the time we share. I will go to school and learn as much as I can…study as hard as I can…and press on. I will find a way. I will find my way. And I will grow.

With each new thing that comes and each new thing that goes, I will seek to grow. I will do my very best, living in the unsaid.

Photo of columbines growing in my little garden.

I texted my father (via my mother) today to wish him a happy birthday and ask if I could have his rabbit poop. Yes, I know it’s a weird request, but I want it for my gardening. Fertilizer, you know.

So he replied, “Malachi (my brother) is the rabbit boss. I’m the pig boss. You can have all the pig poop you want.”

I replied, “I don’t want pig poop. It stinks and has parasites. Who’s the goat boss?”

He answered, “Malachi’s the goat boss. Micah (Malachi’s two year old son) is second goat boss.”

I replied that I would just ask Micah then. Mom said, “I already asked him. He said nuh uh.”

Micah…Goat Boss #2

Friday evening, I got a headache.
I have never had a headache like that in my life. I have never had any kind of pain like that in my life, and I’ve had some pretty bad (mostly post-surgery) pain! I’ve had a headache every day this week, starting on the way home from church Sunday, but they were just normal headaches and went away with Excedrin. Amy wasn’t supposed to come home from KY until Saturday, but, after hearing about how we were all feeling bad here, she came home early. She had been home about an hour or so and I started getting a bad headache. Kyra had came home sick from school that day with a fever and vomiting. I thought I was just getting what she had. The headache got gradually worse until I was completely incapacitated. I spent that night in the worst pain of my life. By yesterday morning, I had decided I needed to go to the ER, but Amy couldn’t get a hold of anyone to watch the kids. Finally, Chris came by and stayed with them until he had to go to work, and my mom stayed with them after that.
When we got to the ER, they gave me hydrocodone and zofran. The zofran took away the nausea (which wasn’t that bad anyway), but the hydrocodone didn’t even touch the pain. They took some blood and did a cat scan, but those all came back normal. They gave me a couple shots, one for pain and one was an anti-inflammatory, and a valium. I got pretty relaxed after that, but they didn’t take the pain away. The doctor was starting to be concerned about meningitis, and told me she was going to do a spinal tap. As one last thing to try, they gave me an iv, some more meds in it, and gave me 100% oxygen in a mask. Shortly after starting the oxygen, the pain started to go away. I fell asleep for a bit, and, once the iv drip was through, they sent me home. They think what I had was a cluster migraine.

Photos courtesy of Amy Jo.

I felt fine after we left. Amy stopped and got me some food. We went home, but, unfortunately, the pharmacy was already closed and I couldn’t get any of the pain meds prescribed to me. I came home to a very sick little Kyra. My mom had been taking care of her. I barely remember conversing with my mom before she left, but I think she brought Kyra some pretzels and sierra mist before she headed home. I was on so many drugs by that point, it’s all a bit fuzzy. I do know that I crashed in a chair in the living room, and, every time I woke up, it was because Kyra was puking. My sweet Amy was so good to us. She took care of all the kids, and cleaned up after Kyra all night. And, apparently, took this picture of us:

I was doing good until sometime last night, and the headache came back. It wasn’t as bad as before, but it was pretty bad. Amy went and got my meds as soon as the pharmacy opened this morning, and they knocked the rest of the headache out pretty quickly. I’m back to normal now. No headache, and no other sickness. Kyra is also doing well. It was two very miserable days for her, but she is all better now. She looks like she’s lost five pounds, though. No such luck for me. Apparently, headaches don’t lead to weight loss.

In other “we Harmons are apparently sickly people” news, Abby Jo has a fever and some mysterious spots. She has spots on her shoulder, thigh, hand, etc.

Also, Owen has a cough. I bet you can’t wait to find out what happens next!

We have a large household here. There’s me, my four kids, Amy Jo, and her two kids. We have three boys and three girls. Anyone who grew up in a big family knows what this means. Hand-me-downs! Even though we have only been sharing a home for the last month or so, we have been passing clothes around since we first met. Both of my boys have worn Jeremiah’s outgrown clothes, Kyra and Sarah have passed clothes back and forth, and Abby wears the girls’ clothes a few years after they did. For that matter, Amy and I, being about the same size, have given clothes to each other. Now, we just have a twice as big wardrobe, and whoever is skinnier is happier.
We share other things besides clothes, too. Chores, toys, games, bills, blame, and, yes…germs.
We’ve been sick around these parts. There has been a general complaint of headaches and bodyaches for a couple of weeks, but my little guy, Elijah, has had the worst of it. I picked him up from his daddy two Sundays ago running a fever that he got that afternoon. For the next ten days or so, he had a fever, headache, rash on his cheeks, swollen lymph nodes, and complained of his neck and back hurting. We took him to the doctor three times, where he tested negative for strep, flu, and mono. The doctor put him on antibiotics for a sinus infection, but said that wasn’t the cause of his rash, etc. He said it was probably a virus. After getting very sick with a fever and vomiting on Monday night, which caused him to miss his sister’s school choir performance at The Princess Theater, he turned the corner and began to feel better. By yesterday afternoon, he seemed to be back to his normal (pesky) self.
Now, it looks like the girls decided to try on their brother’s hand-me-down germs. Kyra just came home from school with a fever, headache, and now she’s throwing up. Ugh.
In this case, sharing is NOT caring!

It’s been a while since I blogged. I think all of my blog posts lately start with that sentence. I’m happy to report that I have internet access at home again. Not only that, but we got a good deal on it, too! It really was hard not being able to get online at home. It was a big relief to get it back.

I have good news to report. First of all, I paid my tuition for this summer! It was $614, and it took a lot of work to get it. I had a yard sale. I sold all of the remaining baby things I had (crib, toddler bed, and changing table). I’ve also been selling my plasma. That’s worth a whole ‘nother post, though. It was a little here and a little there, but it all added up. I’m so relieved to have my tuition paid for. I knew God would make a way for me to attend school this summer, and He did. I still have to buy my book and lab workbook. They are very expensive…about $270. I’m confident that I will be able to buy it before I need it, though.

We are learning to operate with much less money. Amy and I worked out a budget, and we are very strict about sticking to it. We don’t really have any other choice. There is only so much money. Discipline comes easy when there’s no other option! We have everything we need, though. Food, clothing, shelter, gas, and a few extras to boot. We were thrilled when we got our first utility bill. We had spent all month being energy nazis, and it paid off. Our utility bill was half the amount we had budgeted for. I don’t think it will be as low this month, as the weather turned pretty cold and we had to turn on the heat on a few different nights. We are doing our best, though. I was thrilled tonight when I realized that I was feeding all six of us for under three bucks. We had a childhood staple…macaroni and tomatoes. Everyone was happy with it, and that made me happy. If I learned anything from my mother growing up, I learned how to feed a family for not a lot of money!

I have been back and forth about whether or not to try to get a job now. There are pros and cons to it. It’s not an absolute necessity right now. Even though money is really tight, we are making ends meet. The three classes (including three labs) that I am taking over the next two semesters are really demanding. I am taking Anatomy I this summer, and I’m taking Anatomy II and Microbiology in the fall. From what everyone has told me, these classes require a great deal of study time, and they aren’t easy. I don’t want to be stretched so thin that my grades suffer. It’s very important that I do really well in these classes so that I can get into the nursing program when I apply in the fall. Besides study time, I also want to make sure I have plenty of time to spend with my kids. I’m so thankful to have Amy here to help with childcare while I go to school and possibly go to work, but I don’t want to miss out on time with them if I don’t have to. Especially with Abby. She’s only three! Right now, I’m trying to find a job that would be really flexible and work with my schedule….working around my classes and when I have the kids. If I can’t find something that fits that criteria, I may wait until after the fall semester. Once I finish the two classes in the fall, I will not have any more classes until the following fall. So, I could get a job with pretty regular hours. The three big kids would be in school most of the day. Like I said, there are pros and cons.

So, that’s kind of where I am with school and work and the day to day expenses of living. Now that I have internet at home again, I would like to blog more often. I have been keeping really busy lately, and it seems like I haven’t had much time to just do the things I like to do. Things like reading, blogging, writing, etc. have taken a back seat to trying to reorganize the house, raising money for tuition, taking care of kids, and so on. I’m going to try, though, to get back into the swing of things. I’ve had this blog for almost eight years, and I don’t want to let it die now. I don’t know if anyone much is even still reading it, but it’s always nice for me to be able to look back through my archives and remember where I’ve been.

It’s been a long time since I have blogged. Part of the reason is that I no longer have Internet access at home, but the biggest reason is because it’s hard to know what is okay to write about anymore. I used to blog about my life pretty openly, and placed a lot of importance on being transparent in my writing. However, I now find myself in a situation where it doesn’t feel safe to be transparent and blog openly about what’s going on in my life. Maybe I will feel differently once my divorce is final, but, for right now, I’m treading lightly.
Things are going pretty well for me, despite my circumstances. Not having my kids with me all the time is an adjustment. Chris and I share time with the children, and we each get them right at half the time. Chris moved out of the house for good about a month ago. He got a nice apartment with plenty of room for the kids. The kids like it, and love spending time with their dad when they’re with them. I never thought that I would be able to keep the house. There was no way I could afford to make the mortgage on my own. Chris didn’t want to keep the house, though, so I get it. I am making it work financially by having a roommate. Amy is also going through a divorce, so she moved in with me and we are sharing all the bills.
Next to not having my kids with me every day, the biggest adjustment is financial. I am going from having a very comfortable lifestyle to being pretty darn broke. It’s okay. I grew up kind of poor, and I know how to live accordingly. I grew up learning from my mom how to stretch a meal and cook affordably. I have friends and relatives who pass down their kids’ clothes to my kids. We will be okay. It is stressful, though.
My biggest financial stress right now is coming up with the money to pay my tuition. I am going back to Roane State to be a nurse. I only need three classes that I haven’t already taken before I can apply to the nursing program. I am going to take one of them this summer, and the other two in the fall. I applied for financial aid, but, since I am not yet legally divorced, they go by Chris’ income and I got denied. It sucks, because I no longer have access to Chris’ income, other than the amount I get each month for child support. I can’t file a change of income until after the divorce is final. The summer semester will already be over by then. So, I have to come up with several hundred dollars to pay my tuition with. I believe that God will provide the money I need, and I’ve already seen him begin to do that. At church Wednesday night, a lady that I didn’t even know came up to me and told me she hoped I had a good Easter and slipped a hundred dollar bill into my hand. I am overwhelmed at her kindness and at God’s goodness. I am planning on selling some things in the near future, and I’m hoping to be able to pay my tuition that way.
Life is different, to say the least, but I’m making it. I have a lot of really low times, but God’s grace is sufficient. I feel like everything in life happens for a reason…according to God’s sovereignty. I try not to beat myself up all the time for the mistakes I’ve made and things I wish I’d done differently. My life is what it is, and I’m doing the best I can. I’m comforted to know God will never leave me nor forsake me. Sometimes, that is the only comfort I have, but I’m learning that it really is enough.

Guess who? It’s your absentee blogger friend! Sorry for the long absence from blogging. I’ve been having adventures and life crisis(es). What is the plural of “crisis”? Oh, ok. It’s crises. I could hear the word in my head, but I didn’t know how to spell it until I looked it up. So, I’ve been having adventures and life crises.

Basically, I went on a cruise and it was mostly fun. I visited Cozumel, Mexico. Belize. Isla Roatan, Honduras. and Costa Maya, Mexico. It was great. I had never been out of the country before. I had never rode in a taxi before. I had never sailed on a ship before. I had never had a scarlet macaw land on my head before. I had never ate iguana before. I had never been bitten by a monkey before. I had never shared a hot tub with Canadians before. I had never played slots before. But…now I have. And it was good.

As far as the crises go, I’m getting divorced. We tried to make it last longer for the sake of the kids, but that’s not going to work. That’s all I really want to say about it right now.

Also, you should really buy my book. Pretty please. If you already have, if you write a review on Amazon for me, I will send you a free book. One that I didn’t write. No worries. I have some good ones, and I’ll let you choose.

I know this post is kind of ADD’ish, but it’s the best I can do tonight. I’m just trying to get back into the groove of writing again.

I am so excited! I have finally published my Kindle book I’ve been working on.

It’s called “Coming Out: Poetry & Short Stories” by Rachel Harmon. Right now, it is only in Kindle format. I know some of you don’t have a Kindle, but you can read it even if you don’t. You can read it on your computer. If you have a smartphone, you can download an app to read it on your phone, as well. Here is a link that can show you all the different ways you can read Kindle books.

I would be absolutely thrilled if you would read my book. If you do read it, please let me know what you think about it. I am just absolutely thrilled to have my words published for people to read. Being a writer is my dream, and this is a step in that direction. If you like my book, it would mean the world to me if you took the time to post a review on Amazon saying if you liked it and why. A few good words about it might persuade someone else to drop $2.99 on my book and give it a chance. I’m just looking for a chance.

Let me know if you read it!

I have the winner of the Book Giveaway! I made a little video of the drawing process.

Congratulations, Joy Boyer, you won a book! Contact me over email, facebook, or through the “contact me” link on the blog to let me know your address and which book you would like.

Thanks, everyone, for leaving a comment. I may do another giveaway very soon, so stay tuned!