Life Changes

The past eight months of my life have brought about some very serious changes.
I worked at Rockcastle Manufacturing for ten years and frankly, thought I always would. While I was pretty comfortable in this mundane existence, people elsewhere were rerouting my future. As people in factories often do, I suppose, we thoroughly enjoyed complaining about our jobs. But at the same time, I think we had a false sense of security. We always said that this miserable place would never go anywhere but when it did, we were left with a very lost feeling. I guess it is like that saying, ‘"be careful what you wish for, you just might get it."
During this time, I had completely made up my mind that the child I had was all I wanted. My family has been through hell and back with the heart problems that my first child had so I figured why possibly risk that again. I felt blessed to have him and to know that he was ok, at least for a few years. I was in the process of making plans to assure that I could not get pregnant again when all this news came about. I decided to put off the surgery because I thought with being unemployed, other things were more important.
I found out that even though I no longer had a job, I did have the option of going to school. This was something that I had always wanted to do, but without money coming in every week, I didn’t see a possible way. I soon learned that due to our company moving our jobs overseas, we could go to school and get monetary help for two and a half years. I was very excited about this new opportunity.
The first few months off were nice. Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas came and went. I was anxious to get started with adult education and then get on with the process of going to college. I noticed that during the first few weeks of January, I wasn’t feeling the best. I passed this off as just too much time in front of the television or too many months of not working. I didn’t think too much about it and just tried to become more active. I put myself on a strict schedule of getting up early and working in the house all day, trying to mock the last ten years of my life. My brilliant plan, by no means, worked.
I was completely exhausted by the early evening. A light bulb finally went off in my head and I went to the pharmacy. After three pregnancy tests, as much as I didn’t want to face it, I accepted the fact that I was pregnant.
I thought for days about how to tell my husband, my son and the rest of my family. They all knew that I had decided that I didn’t want any more children. My husband on the other hand had always wanted one more, no matter what health problems it may have. I just didn’t want to face the fact that everything that happened with my first child could possibly happen again. I was terrified.
When I finally told my husband, I was crying and he was jumping straight up and down. I was crying because I was afraid, he was crying because he got the second child he had always wanted. When we finally told our son, Landon, he was completely in shock. For every lost tooth, Easter, Christmas or birthday, he had asked for a baby sister or brother. He couldn’t believe that he was finally getting what he had always wanted. After finally telling everyone else, I still felt extremely guilty. I felt this guilt because I couldn’t let myself be happy or excited, because of fear. I understand that the rest of my family worries about Landon but it is just different when you are the mother. It is on my mind every day and I have cried myself to sleep several times. If you are the parent, you are supposed to be able to fix or produce whatever your child needs. When it comes to several open-heart surgeries and weeks in the hospital, you are completely helpless. A group of strangers, called surgeons, doctors, and nurses, take over your role as caregiver.
I just couldn’t comprehend this possibly happening with another child. Hence the reason for convincing myself that I was done having children.
January 20, 2006 was my first doctor’s appointment and my husband finally understood why I was not the most elated person in the world. We talked to the doctor for over two hours about everything that had happened with Landon and about what could possibly happen with this one. She made a world of difference in what I thought and what I was worried about. She did confirm what we already knew, the chance of us having another child with a heart defect is three times higher than other people. During our long visit, we were assured that if something were wrong, they would take every measure to make it as smooth as possible. This did make me feel better and the worry did ease quite a bit. I had a terrible experience with the doctors that delivered Landon and felt so much better with this set of doctors.
The next step in this process was to schedule several detailed ultrasounds and tests to look for birth defects. I have had one regular ultrasound and one detailed ultrasound so far. They have already done an echocardiogram and an EKG in utero. Both were fine, but we have been told not to get our hopes up because the baby’s heart is so small. Smaller than a marble right now and with the machines having to magnify this so many times, it is not completely accurate. Another repeat test is scheduled for May 1, and then they should be able to tell exactly if there are any heart defects.
I do know that this child is a little girl. I, more than anyone else, just wanted a healthy baby but it is nice to have a son and a daughter. I have chosen a name for this child, and it will be bittersweet when she is born. The name is Leigha and that is after my sister that passed away at three-years of age.
I am happy to say that I have come to terms with whatever may be. I am looking forward to decorating a little girl’s nursery and just having a daughter. My husband’s main concern, for the time being, is how he will handle boys in her future. Landon just wants to feed her, and dress her and have someone to play with. In the month’s to come, who knows what will happen, but I myself feel much more comfortable with the whole process. I’m no longer terribly worried and I am just happy to be pregnant again.
I guess the last eight months have taught me that nothing is set in stone and attempt to be prepared for anything. To think you are so sure of something and then have your entire life turned upside down is chaotic. I sometimes think about that executive somewhere in the world that ultimately gave me these awesome opportunities. Had he or she not closed our factory, these gifts would not be mine. Through all the obstacles with Landon, losing my job, and becoming pregnant at what I thought was the worst possible time, I now know that it is just the beginning of something wonderful. I just had no idea at the time. By Dianna C

Dad

Dad

I know a very special man named Virgil. He was born on January 16,1922, in Brodhead, Kentucky.He married a very sweet and loving woman by the name of Dolly Denny. They had 13 children, five girls and eight boys. Virgil and Dolly worked very hard to feed and clothe them. They farmed for a living on a farm that never belonged to them. They only got a percentage of what was made each year and free rent. Every morning started way before daylight for him and his family, and stopped way after dark. The boys and some of the girls helped feed the cows, hogs and the chickens. Virgil also planted acres and acres of tobacco. They raised very large gardens and canned food for the winter. He always raised the meat that they ate, and got eggs from the chickens, and had a milk cow. They loved their children and taught them how to work for a living, but they also sent them to school to learn and get a good education so they might not have such a hard life later on.
This was a hard life, but it was a happy one. We had love and respect for our parents and we had sisters and brothers to love and fight with. This was a very special time in our lives. You can never forget them and you can only bring them back in memories. The children have grown up, left home and now some have grandchildren of their own. There are only six boys left and five girls. Dolly has gone on to Heaven for about 4 years now. Virgil has been retired for several years now and still lives in Brodhead with his poodle named Jake that keeps him company. Virgil still mows his yard with a riding lawnmower, dusts and vacuums the house, raises tomatoes in the back yard and loves to watch TV. In my opinion you could not meet a more loving, kind and caring father, friend and neighbor who will do anything for you.
Every Sunday and especially on a holidays his yard and driveway are full of vehicles; you can just about bet that his children have come for a visit. He started out with 13 children, now he has 23 grandchildren and 17 great grandchildren. When they have a dinner at his house it’s more like a feast and you sure can put on the pounds. I may be a little prejudiced, but that is okay because I’m his daughter-in law and he is very special to me.

Written by Dina

Dreams

The Ocean
To make my dream of a family vacation at the ocean come true, I first had
to find to a way to afford this vacation. I thought of ways to began a savings plan
I also looked up places I might like to visit so I would have an ideal place I would like to go
It took me two years to save for this. At times I would get discouraged and I would look at the web site I had found to remind me of my goal. finally the day came when I reached my goal and started travel plans, It was like a dream, a private home on the beach, I was up
early every morning so I could walk on the beach and watch the sunrise, smell the ocean breeze and listen to the seagulls. It is a very serene feeling, the rest of the day I would swim and sunbathe and build sand castles. I also got to see live starfish, jellyfish, dophins, sharks etc, I always ended my day with a good meal and watching the sunset, this lasted for seven glorious days.
Georgette

Hunting with Lisa, Jeremy and Jordon

Hunting with My Sons
Lisa C.
I never wanted to hunt until my sons Jeremy and Jordon wanted me to take them hunting. As a single parent of boys, I decided that we needed to learn the safety of using a gun so I enrolled them in a Hunter Education Class.
I stayed with them in the class and we learned the safety of how to use a gun and how to be responsible when hunting with more than one person. My brother David had always taken Jeremy for me but Jordon was too young to go. I started to take Jordon when he turned nine.
The first year we went and stayed out in the woods most of the day but did not kill or see a deer.The next year was more exciting.
This time my cousin Steven told Jeremy if we went to the cliff in Blue Springs one of them would kill a deer. Jeremy showed us the place Friday night before we went hunting on Saturday morning.
That night we only saw squirrels but we did not try to kill them. On Saturday morning we got up very early. Jeremy and Jordon were very excited to get to go hunting. I was doing this because I knew that my sons need to do things that other boys get to do. I had never been in the woods that early before.
The woods are very peaceful at 6:00 in the morning. It is still dark; then you start to hear the animals waking up. Each one making its own sound. This is one of the most beautiful times of the day. The sun came up and then we walked over to the cliffs.
We were at the cliffs for about ten minutes when two deer came around the corner. They were side by side. Jeremy was on my right and Jordon was on my left. I told Jordon to shoot the deer twice and Jeremy shot at about the same time. Jordon hit the deer in the neck. It fell straight down. The other deer jumped about ten feet in the air and ran away. We had to wait for the deer to die, anyway that is what they had told us in the hunting class.
We all made our way down the cliff and I thought that the deer had 4-points but it turned out that it was a 10-point buck. This was a very big deer for Jordon’s first deer.
I know that we needed to gut the deer so we started doing it. We learned how to do this together. After it was finished, we started dragging the deer up the cliff. This took a long time and once we were at the top of the cliff, Jeremy needed to rest because he was the one that did most of the dragging.
Jordon and I went to get the truck and by the time we got back, Jeremy had the deer next to the road. We put the deer in the truck and took some pictures. Some other hunter came by and said if they knew that the boys and I had gone down the cliff they would have helped us. On the way home, we stopped at the gun store to weigh the deer; it weighed 185 pounds. After weighing the deer, we went to my mother’s house. She was worried because we had been gone for a long time. Jordon ran into the house and told her that he had killed a deer. She thought that he was joking with her. Then she came and saw the deer in the truck. She called to tell my brothers Robert and David the great news. David got there in about five minutes and showed the boys how to clean the deer.
This was a very long day. but my sons and I learned a lot of new things . The most fun was watching the boys get excited about finally killing a deer.