ransom rolls!

check it out!

 

 

weekly weigh-in begins today!

so, friends, i’m gonna do it.

ever since baby ransom came out, i’ve been on a quest to get this baby weight off, and though i’ve done pretty darn good so far (41 pounds in four and a half months!), i want to boost it up a bit.  making myself vulnerable to the internets ought to cut it…

so i’m going to be completely vulnerable.  from what i’m learning about the other ladies who are being completely vulnerable regarding their weight loss/gains in their own blogs is that the vulnerability makes you commit just that much more.  and when you commit, you see more results.  it’s like going to weight watchers without the discretion of a small group (and the payment plan…).

should be scarier.  it’s not.

the joys of being thrifty…

i think every time we go shopping, my husband falls in love with me a little more…

darin hates shopping.  i love to shop.  obviously this is a recipe for disaster, especially considering the fact that i can’t drive right now because of the good doctor’s orders (and wisdom.. i have no depth perception and have less peripheral vision in my left eye than usual), but since i know my husband hates to deal with my shopper’s syndrome, i’ve learned how to make our trips out a little more fun for him.

here’s how:

1. i find things for free all the time, especially things of interest to him, like restaurant food, soft drinks, sweets, and events.  i also peruse the library’s giveaway box every time i go and often find a magazine or two that he would like.  nothing makes a man happier than getting something for nothing…

whew! dodged that bullet…

NO SURGERY TODAY!

yay!  doc says my eye is still doing what it’s supposed to; i still have a detachment because of the fluid not absorbing quickly enough, but he thinks it is just taking its sweet time going away and that it’s not worth surgery at this time.  we re-evaluate in one month unless i see warning signs of trouble before then.  let’s just hope that doesn’t happen.

in other news, today is free joey jr. burrito day at all charlotte moe’s southwest burrito joints!  love it!  gonna get me some free moe’s!  woo yeah!

good news!

bless the Lord, oh my soul…

 

 

 

that’s right, folks–100% of my hospital bill from my eye surgery last month is covered.  i still owe the anesthesiologist and the retinal specialist’s office, but $5100+ has been forgiven and they will even cover any other procedures through 11-17 of this year (which means that if i have to have surgery tomorrow, i won’t have to pay for it either).

i am so thankful to Jesus!  this bill’s payment plan (smallest they would give me) would have put us deeply in the hole every single month; i am still in awe at this blessing!  i might just frame the thing…

i live in transition…

alright, so lots to share…  and at the end, i’ll give you pictures of the boy, so hang in there through the update muck and you’ll get a happy ending. : )

k, so, biggest news to plow through: ZHOP is closing its doors october 17th.

initial response is likely confusion, so let me clarify.  the leadership team here at ZHOP has been deeply in prayer regarding God’s desire for prayer in charlotte for years; they are very in tune with what the spirit is doing here in the city and are continually asking for revelation and direction.  right now, God is doing a great stirring in the prayer community, relocating folks from all kinds of places and prayer houses and nations, and it is all according to his own design (not so much our own, as is evidenced by the number of folks moving about by way of dreams and visions and releasings).  we-dammes are one of those families, and we are one of several who just moved here to the charlotte area because of something God-ordained.

as far as ZHOP is concerned, our senior leadership team has been feeling the tug of the spirit to be reassigned elsewhere, some to IHOP-KC, some to other places, and many of the community members here have been likewise feeling those tugs and were waiting on the Lord to be released.  a couple of weeks ago it was decided that ZHOP would be officially closing its doors mid-october so that everyone would have a chance to sincerely posture themselves before God and figure out what to do.  many folks and families are moving to KC, some to atlanta, others to overseas destinations, and there is still yet a decent community who will remain here in charlotte to stand on the wall on intercession for this city.

we are one of those families who will be staying.  it has little to do with our lease.

but phish food is sooo tasty… :(

in my inbox this morning was this message from ben & jerry’s:

 

 

i’m really disturbed about it, honestly.  i’m an ice cream connoissuer, ben & jerry’s was one of my favorite brands for a number of reasons, but it goes without saying that the owners, etc. are raging hippies, so this whole ordeal shouldn’t be so shocking.

compromise is infiltrating the ice cream world.  what next?

i’m sad.  no more phish food for me…  good thing i just bought an ice cream maker.

i love my guys

in addition to Jesus, these are my two favorite guys in the world:

 

 

i lovelovelove them!  yes!

one more time

so, i’ve sat down and started to post so many times in the past two weeks, but i never get very far for whatever reason (ransom fussing or hungry, darin needing wifely assistance, house needing attention, me getting a window of time in which to sleep, etc.).  today i shall try one more time.

before i get started, here are some ransom pictures:

 

 

updates

Hello everyone.  I’m sitting here at my mother in laws thinking of all of the people i should call and realizing that there is not nearly enough hours in the day this past couple of weeks to keep people updated.  So i’m going to put it here for the masses read. 

   since we’ve moved the biggest news to date has been concerning kacie’s eye and the surgery that immediately followed.  to explain further, Kacie had what is called a retinal detachment.  There is no way for anyone to see it from the outside except for people who know what to look for under a microscope and what symptoms kacie could see.  It starts as flashes in one or both eyes and then big “floaters” going across the eye that pretty much everyone has in some way or another.  These floaters are larger than normal which is what makes them different, obviously.  The biggest thing that caused us much concern was the “curtain” that started slowly creeping in.  basically kacie was partially blind in only part of her eye due to the retinal detachment.  part of her eye had a black curtain creeping from her nose to the center of her left eye resulting in a mini blindness.  Pretty creepy to say the least.  We had no idea what to do or what it meant.  with all of this happening so close to us moving there wasn’t a whole lot that we thought we could do.  So we moved to NC and her eye curtain started creeping farther towards the center of her eye.  and then the next day it was gone.  and then it was back again. and then it was gone.  and the back again.  so… we went to her hometown eye doctor to check this creepy thing out.  the night before we went though we looked it up online to see just what it might be.  needless to say, by what we read on google, we were pretty scared about what the diagnosis might be. 

We go to the eye doctor. he says ” yep its a retinal detachment, i’m going to send you to doctor Baer.”  We go to doctor Baer who looks like steve zahn the actor except not funny at all.  but kacie and i both looked at each other in the doctors office when he walked in with that knowing grin that best friends have when they are thinking the exact same thing.  then the doctor, after doing all of his check up stuff with kacie says, ” yeah you have a retinal detachment”  he then explains that we need to go for surgery the next day and then schedules it with the hospital. 

now in the period of 2 days we went from a weird eye thing, to an eventual permanent blindness if left untreated.  Big news for people who just made a cross country move. 

all that to say we appreciate everyone praying for us in this time of craziness and unsurety and that we have a whole lot of people believing for kacies full healing.  furthermore, if we could toss out another prayer request, we are needing favor with financial assistance in NC.  Since we haven’t lived here for more than a week, we don’t qualify for regular financial assistance as we would have in KC having been there for more than 3 years.  We are trying an emergency medicaid specifically for things like this surgery.  we need favor. 

thank you for taking the time to read this mumbled mess of blog but i needed to get it out somehow.  Bless you all for all of your faithful support of us as a family and as a family in ministry. 

Good night