Ouch, etc.

This last month has been a bit of a blur for me. A week after we moved into our new house, I started to get a really bad toothache. This tooth has been cracked for awhile, and I think it finally broke a little more– just enough to expose the nerve.

From there, it only took a few days to get infected, and then I was in a heap of pain. Anyone out there who has had a serious toothache knows exactly what I’m talking about. Nothing else is on your mind but that tooth, and how you wish you could just rip it out. Although the two pains are a different type, I would say that a bad toothache and delivering a baby is comparable when it comes to the amount of pain experienced (and I have never had an epidural before). BUT — for the record — I think labor is more painful. Not much longer and I will be fully reminded of how that feels! (o:

I don’t like taking medications or pain killers, etc. while I’m pregnant, and I’m certainly not about to have novocain injected into me or get an x-ray of my teeth while I’m pregnant. So, I talked my new midwife into prescribing me an antibiotic (better than the other options) to relieve the pain and to buy me some time until the baby is born. That helped some, but still, every time I would eat anything, my tooth would ache BAD and it would be at least 20 minutes before the pain would subside– mainly because of the nerve being exposed. Then I would dread eating, but that cannot prevent a pregnant person from eating, and so the cycle went on. 10 days later, I finished the antibiotic. What now. It still hurt when I ate.

Then I remembered– about a month or so ago, I was listening to NPR on the radio and they were airing a documentary about the poor people of Appalachia. You know how NPR is– you hear dogs barking or children crying or people working in a coal mine in the background, while the reporter talks about the people of Appalachia like they’re some weird sorry breed of animal, and how sad this interesting breed or speciman really is. They go on and on talking about the horrible conditions that they live in (which really is sad– I’m not doubting that)– but then — I hear a stroke of genious! They would fill their cavaties with candle wax. How brilliant is that?!

And so, here I am, going on day 3 with NO pain. I sealed up my tooth with a little blob of candle wax (unscented of course). I am so thankful for hearing that documentary when I did– I could just hug the person who was interviewed. What a great idea!

So I am now just hoping and praying that it will keep me pain free until after the baby is born, and maybe then we’ll also have some kind of dental insurance (although that may be wishful thinking).

Other than that, (and the really bad cold I got last week) things have been great. Matthew is working 2 jobs for the time being, and still patiently waiting for his Bar results. We all LOVE it here, and the baby is getting huge– evidenced by my massive belly. Looking forward to having some furniture again someday (keeping my eye on craigslist)– we sold it all before we moved from Virginia. We love our neighborhood, our new church, and everything that comes with those things. God has been good to us by making this move work out– the details on how it all happened are really amazing.

I’ll try to keep you all a little better updated in the future, but no promises. (o:

Back in the woods behind our house

I Renember Dat!

I cannot even tell you how many times we have heard R say “Ohh! I renember dat!!” over the last several days as we have been unpacking. We all, but the girls especially, have been enjoying seeing all of our things that have been packed up for the last three months.

With the amount of times we have moved in the past, it has been proved time and again, that if you pack up a toy that a child is sick of and pull it back out in a few months, you will likely never have to go toy shopping except on birthdays or other special occasions. This may work with adults as well– kind of works with me. (o:

Here are a few recent pictures…

Window Shopping

Ooga Booga Man

Moved Again

As most of you already know, we’ve moved again.

We packed the truck (or I should say, Matthew packed the truck) last Tuesday, and we drove to our new house on Wednesday and finished unloading by Thursday afternoon. Thankfully, we had everything moved inside before the torrential rains came, and also before we had massive sewage back-up problems (ew).

As you can see from the picture above, some of our windows go all the way down to the ground. We watched nervously and prayed as the water levels rose, but thankfully, the inside of the house stayed dry. We lost power at least 3 times though, but that ended up being kind of fun.

We LOVE it here. Once I can get everything unpacked and a little more organized, I’ll start taking some pictures of our new neighborhood and the surrounding area. As far as I’m concerned at this point, I could stay here forever.