The Saturday 7

Birthday Week!

1. My birthday was on Tuesday, and I celebrated with my favorite thing: food. I actually reeled myself in a little this year because we're broke and can't afford to go out for every meal all week. But we did get Arby's for lunch on Sunday.

On my actual birthday, I had to work at Once Upon. But I got Biggby on the way in, then I had Qdoba delivered to me at work. That night Justin took me to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner. The way to my heart is truly through my stomach. And my stomach was surprisingly accepting of all that food! There is no rhyme or reason to my stomach madness.

2. Lena made me this adorable card all on her own:

It was a good day. Bring on 38.

3. I finished a good book this week.

I'm really starting to like Dane Ortlund. I read another book by him earlier this year (Gentle and Lowly), and this one kind of builds on that. His premise is that real change and growth in the Christian life doesn't come by "trying harder" or "building better habits" or any of those buzz words we've grown up with. Instead "the Spirit changes us by making Christ wonderful to us" (167). That's still hard for me because I struggle to understand the balance of responsibility between the Spirit and me, but he said that it's something we should pray for. Ask the Holy Spirit to make Christ wonderful to us. It reminds me of a prayer that Paul prayed for his disciples and I try to pray for my kids. He prays that they "may have power, together with the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." (Eph. 3:18-19) It wasn't necessarily an easy read, but it was good. I recommend it!

4. On Friday, Lena and I both had doctor appointments. Lena's was easy peasy. She's pretty much perfect, except for a tiny bit of scoliosis that we have to watch - but I had the exact same thing at her age and it never got worse. My appointment was a bit longer, though. When I went in for my stomach problems this summer, I just saw the PA, so I haven't talked to my actual doctor about all my issues. The medicine the PA prescribed me did not help, so I stopped taking it. I've been feeling better, but still not perfect. My stomach low-grade hurts most of the time. And earlier this week I was thinking I was looking a little thinner than usual, so I stepped on the scale for the first time in a long time . . . and realized that I have lost 15 pounds since I went to urgent care for strep in April. 😬 While I'd love to celebrate that spontaneous weight loss, my dietician sister has made it abundantly clear to me that unintended weight loss is never a good sign. I mean, I have been eating less since my stomach hurts all the time. And I've been on my feet more than usual since working at Once Upon. But I'm not sure that adds up to 15 pounds worth of weight loss. So my doctor is sending me in for a colonoscopy/endoscopy. Yay. 🤦 I'm trying not to assume that means I have colon cancer, but my anxiety meds are working overtime to keep me from spiraling.

5. Speaking of anxiety meds, though . . . My doctor also said something very interesting. Apparently IBS can be caused by a serotonin deficiency. You know what else is caused by a serotonin deficiency? Depression. And you know what treats both of those things? Zoloft - the drug I weaned myself off of over the past year! The timing coincides perfectly with my stomach issues. And even my feeling better the past few weeks may be because I upped my dose again! So, I'm much more inclined to think that's the issue instead of colon cancer. But the weight loss is still a little concerning. Also, we have Medicaid, but we're getting dangerously close to making too much money to keep it, so I'm going to go through with all the free testing I can now! I'm sure I'll keep you posted. 😁

6. In less depressing news, my sisters and I hosted a baby shower for my niece Madi today. She's adding a baby girl to the cousin crew in December, and we had so much fun celebrating! We're shower pros, and it's getting difficult to come up with fresh themes and games, but I think we pulled it off. My nephew's name is Tayton, but we've called him Tater since he was just a little tot (see what I did there?), so we went with a "growing/garden" theme. Look how cute it turned out:

I made a bunch of these with Canva. There are a lot of verses that refer to "growing!"

I couldn't resist the little Baby Potato Heads 😂

Esther made this adorable vegetable garden!

Niki's charcuterie game is strong

When we looked up inspiration pictures on Pinterest, we saw this exact watering can with a bouquet in it. I knew my dad owned that watering can and grew flowers, so I asked him to contribute this feature, and he came through!