Virginia Louise Matheny 1930-2009

Louise, Christmas Day, 2008

On the morning of Friday, August 28, 2009, Shalaine’s maternal grandmother, Louise Matheny, passed away. We spent the weekend in Western Kentucky attending the funeral and mourning with her family.

Please pray for Shalaine and her family during this time, particularly Shalaine’s grandfather, Grover, who is now without his wife and companion of fifty-eight years.

Back to school, back to school…

Although, it will officially be summer for several more weeks, summertime for the Breedens has come to a close. This week Shalaine and I both started back at school. Both of us are really excited about the classes that we are taking/teaching.

Shalaine:

2 Regular Biology classes
1 Honor’s Biology class

What’s great about this is that this basically boils down to 1.5 preps for Shalaine. Typically, she is teaching all kinds of other sciences and has multiple preps. She is also very excited because she has all biology classes and that’s her favorite to teach.

Gavin:

Hebrew Exegesis*
Homiletics** II
Systematic Theology III
Santification
Leadership
Isaiah – Malachi
Archaeology and the Bible***

*My final language class!
**Preaching
***I’m only auditing this, so it only half counts

It’ll be a busy and edifying semester for both of us, I’m sure.

We’ll try to post some photos of our trips to the Outer Banks and Charleston. Also, Irene is coming to see us this weekend (and there was much rejoicing-yaaaaay!).

August Happenings

Summer is winding down and that means Shalaine will soon be teaching again and I’ll be returning to full-time studies at RTS. However, before all that the month of August is an exciting one around here. Here’s what it looks like:

August 7-9 Mindy Parman visited and we had tons of fun hanging out with her.

August 10-14 We went to the Outer Banks of North Carolina with our friends from church/ RTS, the Nances (blog post with lots of pictures coming soon)

Near the end of the month we’ll going to Charleston, SC with the Cozarts, friends from RTS (we’ll blog about this when we return)

Finally, near the very end of the month we’ll have a visit from another great friend from college: Irene Oquendo!

It’s going to be a fun time. We’ll let you know how things go.

Slippin’ and Slidin’

It has been a long time since I have been slip’n’sliding! Gavin has been working with the youth group at our church and this past Saturday we had a little party. I had the best time as you can see from the picture above. I received several scratches and bruises from this fun activity, but it was well worth it. I will leave you with some great pictures of the event. These pictures were taken by Sarah Kitchen and are absolutely wonderful. Enjoy!!!

Gavin was not prepared to go down the slide; however, the boys had a great time dragging him down it!

This was the group going down together! You can tell by their faces they are a happy group!

View from Our Front Yard

Mockingbird sitting on a signpost.

Change of scenery

We changed the blog up a little bit because it was time for a breath of fresh air around here. A new design template (my favorite WordPress template) and a new photo up there. The new pic is one I found on the internet of the Charlotte LYNX trains uptown. Kinda cool.

Also, now, when you want to know whether the post is authored by Shalaine or myself, you have to look at the bottom next to the little comments link. Go ahead and take a look now….seriously, go take a look………

……..you see, now you know this post was written by Gavin.

Adios, family and friends.

An Egg-citing Saturday morning

This morning began with our usual Saturday morning routine. We went to the Caribou Coffee down the street and got some coffee and sat outside and worked a crossword puzzle. Then I went and got a $7.99 haircut next door while Shalaine drove across the parking lot to go grocery shopping at Harris Teeter.

Now, we love Harris Teeter grocery stores. They usually have high quality products and great customer service. They only downside that we’ve found is their eggs. All of their cartons of eggs contain at least a couple cracked eggs.

So, this morning we spent about five minutes looking through carton after carton of eggs to find that each one had one or two cracked eggs in it. It became almost a game to see if one of us could find a carton with twelve good eggs. Finally, I found one (victory! Gavin: 1 Shalaine:0) and we headed to the check-out.

When we got outside and loaded the groceries in the car, we sat up a little assembly line. Shalaine took the bags out of the cart and handed them to me and I’d put them into the car. The final bag she handed me contained my game-winning carton of eggs. Without thinking, I carelessly tossed the bag onto the top of the other bags.

Shalaine and I froze and looked at each other. I pulled the carton out and opened it up to discover that about half of these perfect eggs had been cracked. We looked at each other and just laughed, sometimes that’s all you can do. And after the kind of rough week we’ve had, it was good to laugh.

My Crazy Kidney Stone Adventure

Disclaimer: This post is about kidney stones and in order to tell you this gruesome tale, I may have to get a bit…earthy. You’ve been warned, so don’t complain.

The Arrival of an Unexpected Visitor

Sunday, May 24, 2009 is a day that will go down in infamy in the Breeden family annals (yes, we keep annals– every family should). On that morning I awoke at 6:20 AM with a sharp pain in the middle of my back on the right side. It is very rare for me to wake up for any reason during the night (Gavin=heavy sleeper), so I was a little alarmed to begin with.

My first thought was that it might be gas pains or some other bodily cramp (you see, it’s already getting earthy, I warned you). I went to the bathroom (more earthiness) and nothing changed. It was at this time that I first entertained the awful idea that I might be experiencing the early pain of a kidney stone (please, say it ain’t so!). It was so.

I woke Shalaine up and we began to read stuff about kidney stones on the interwebs and we confirmed that I was having some of the symptoms. The pain was getting worse in my back. It felt like what I imagine a stab wound may feel like. (Please, don’t stab me, I don’t want to know if I’m right.)

The interwebs said that the Kidney Stone Sufferer (aka KSS aka me) would “writhe in pain” (I remember that exact phrase because it turned out to be so true) and that they would be unable to find a comfortable position (also so true). I laid on the couch and writhed in pain, and for the first time in my life, I actually groaned involuntarily because of pain.

Shalaine was scared. She had never seen her big, strong, manly husband act like a small child before (well, she had, but not seriously). “Should we go to a doctor?” she asked. It was Sunday and we knew that our only option was either Urgent Care or the ER, and we knew either option would be expensive.

Also, we knew that there likely wasn’t much that the medical professionals could do other than give me some pain killers. I had already taken three Tylenol (which did about as much good as three sugar cubes, three English peas, or three pieces of gum would have done), so we decided to play the waiting game until things got worse.

The interwebs told us to seek medical attention if: 1) I couldn’t urinate, or 2) there was blood in the urine (ewww, more earthiness). Fortunately, neither of these things ever happened to me.

Since I’m an intern at my church and the youth Sunday School teacher, I called my pastor and told him that I wouldn’t be at church and explained my predicament. I called my dad and sought his fatherly advice on matters of kidney stones and Shalaine called her dad (a one-time KSS) and sought his advice as well.

So, Operation Pass This Stone (OPTS) commenced. The interwebs instructed me, the KSS, to walk around and to drink lots of water. I did both. Shalaine and I took the dogs out for a walk around the block because the pain had subsided a little bit. I recall prophetically commenting to Shalaine, that “the pain is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.” Oh, how right I was. That was the last time that the pain would subside until the whole ordeal was over.

Once we got back, the pain began to move toward my bladder (the interwebs said this would happen, so this really confirmed I was a KSS). This was actually a good sign because it meant that the stone was moving and that it was getting ready to pass.

We put Edward Scissorhands on in order to distract me while I paced around the house and chugged water bottles (I think I drank three or four that morning). Once the pain moved to my bladder it intensified.

Just a quick word about the pain. I have heard that the passing of a kidney stone was worse than child labor (for obvious reasons, I can neither confirm nor deny the truth of it, and I certainly wouldn’t want to speculate in front of any mothers). The pain did not come in waves, it was constant. The pain was sharp (like a stab wound [please, don't stab me]) but it also felt like tons of pressure was being applied to the bladder (like it was in a vice grip [please don't vice grip me]). I can say, without hesitation, that it was the worst pain I have ever felt in my life.

I remained in that state of constant pain for what seemed like an eternity, but was only about an hour. It hurt to sit, it hurt to walk, it hurt to do anything.

I had been drinking all morning and finally I started to pee. I made myself pee every few minutes just to make sure that I didn’t need to go to the doctor. We decided that I should pee through a strainer (a new one that my sister bought Shalaine for her birthday–we have since washed it twice, so don’t be afraid to come to our house for spaghetti) so that we would know for sure if I passed the stone because they can be as small as a grain of sand! As we discovered later, this would not be necessary.

Victory! OPTS Successful!

After a couple hours of waiting, drinking, pacing, and praying, finally, at 10:15 AM, nearly four hours after I woke up in pain and nearly three hours after OPTS began, I, the KSS, passed my kidney stone. Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt to pass it– it just stung slightly.

I went back out to the living room and immediately noticed the pain in my bladder lessen and within minutes I felt completely normal aside from a slight ache in my back. Was it over? Yes! OPTS was a success!

You know that feeling when you go to the movie theater and drink one of those 73-ounce sodas and then by the end of the movie you have to pee so bad that you think your teeth are literally floating? And then you go pee in the unbelievably over-crowded theater rest room along with 50 other movie-goers? And you know how…….relieved you feel after that? Well, imagine that times ten and that’s how I felt after the stone passed.

The rest of that day, I rested and drank tons of water. A few hours later we inspected the strainer and discovered a little stone in there (pictured below). I hate the sight of that thing now.

Today I’m feeling fine and although there may be another stone lingering in my kidneys (the chances of a KSS having subsequent kidney stones is high), I’m feeling very normal.

My New Life as a KSS

I’ve had to change some of my diet as a result of this. I have to cut back on red meat, diary products, and basically everything good to eat. The main thing to change has been my drinking habits. I have cut sodas out of my life completely; I’ve cut coffee and tea mostly out, and I just drink tons and tons of water (the best way to make sure you never become a KSS).

So, that is my dark, earthy tale of the kidney stone. In summary, it was horrible and I hope you never have to experience such a thing. Before we threw the stone (which is actually a little chunk of calcium, I think) away, we took a photo of it for the Breeden annals and you can see it below. It may not look like much, but remember it passed through passages intended for liquid.

Yes, that passed through me (the stone, not the penny– the penny is there for perspective). The little piece broke off of the big piece, I think.

My Birthday Bash!

I’m 26!! My birthday was on Saturday. I had a wonderful birthday weekend with great friends, food, and fun. My birthday started with a quick run with Gavin and then we traveled about a mile down the road to the nearest Caribou Coffee and had some coffee. We also worked on a crossword which we almost completed (we are actually thinking about making this a Saturday morning tradition because we had such a great time). Then at lunch we went to Target and a place called Bill Spoon’s Barbecue which was possibly some of the best barbecue I have ever had. I then was able to go home and do one thing that I love most and that is nap; this nap would prepare me for a night of great fun. The Hurst’s and Brock’s are the two couples I spent my birthday with and they were great fun. We went to eat at Mama Ricotta’s and then headed to the movies to see Star Trek which is absolutely amazing. It was an absolutely wonderful day and I was so glad to spend it with Gavin. This was the first birthday since Gavin and I got married that I was able to spend the entire day with him because I typically have to work. Thanks to all of you who called and facebooked me to wish me a Happy Birthday!! I will leave you some pictures of a few gifts that I am grateful to have received.

I love flip flops and mine were looking pretty bad. So Gavin was kind enough to get me some brand new, extremely nice sandals.

This was from Jessica Breeden! Thanks Jessica!!

This was from the Hurst's! They also gave me some measuring spoons! This was very kind and I will definitely be cooking for them soon. Oh by the way Hurst's, I cooked with it tonight and it made a wonderful meal!!

I also received some birthday money from Gavin’s family and used that to buy a couple cute dresses. And I’m still loving my other birthday gift, my running shoes.

Hilarity, Cookies, Spellcheck, and Shalaine’s b-day

We have been getting tons of hits on our blogs lately, which surprised us. Upon checking the “Blog Stats” which WordPress so helpfully provide us with, we discovered that a vast majority of the people that come here come by searching for “chocolate chip cookies” on Google. Shalaine’s cookies are good and so I’m glad lots of people are going to that post.

Speaking of Shalaine’s posts, check out our new little blogger!! I was hoping that Shalaine would be the one to write on here the most and inform family and friends of what the Breeden’s are up to and what irreverent shenanigans our Dachshunds are getting into. (No kidding, I spelled shenanigans correctly in that sentence. As I was writing it, I figured the spellchecker would give me the red underline of death, but it did not. [That just shows how technology makes us lazy--"I don't have to learn how to spell, the computer will correct me!"] That’s my fifth greatest achievement today.)

Well, let’s give some props to Shalaine for becoming the next great American blogger. I know a good way to thank her: COMMENTS! Shalaine loves comments. So if you read her blog posts, leave her some comments! Did I mention that she wants some comments?

Also, tomorrow (May 16) is her birthday, don’t forget to wish her a happy b-day!