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Sallie Schaaf Borrink

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Our Cozy Family Life

Our Trip to the ER on Sunday

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June 2, 2023 | Sallie Borrink
3 Comments
View Full Post with Embedded ContentOur Trip to the ER on Sunday

On Sunday morning I remarked that we had a nice open Sunday. We would be able to go to church and simply come home. In addition, we had a free Memorial Day as well. We all needed some down time.

Well, that was not to be.

Each Sunday a deacon opens the service with Scripture, a few thoughts, and prayer. Last Sunday was David’s turn. He’s done this many times before. Part way through, it became clear something wasn’t right. I (like other people) thought maybe he was getting choked up while he was reading since he was having trouble reading part way through, but Romans 1 isn’t a passage that generally moves someone to tears. He was clearly not himself. As his wife, I was certain it wasn’t just emotion.

He got through it with some difficulty and sat down with Caroline and me. I looked at him a few times and finally had him go out to the narthex with me. I asked him if he wanted to go home because he didn’t seem well. He mentioned numbness on the left side of his face, arm, foot, etc. As we talked, I said I thought we should leave and maybe even go to the med center that is half way between our church and home.

So we were searching for stroke symptoms on the phone while on the way to the med center. When I dropped David and Caroline off at the door, I told them to go straight to someone and tell them he thinks he might be having a stroke. I knew that would move things along tremendously.

They got him into a room before he had even finished registration. They ran some basic tests which were normal other than his heart rate being up. But given his age they thought he should go by ambulance downtown to the ER for immediate tests and not have to wait in the waiting room there. The only way to rule out a mini-stroke that might lead to a full stroke was to do more tests.

So that’s what we did.

The tests all came back fine. The discharging doctor (who was a delightful young woman) told him he has the heart and numbers of a twenty year old. She said she doesn’t often get to deliver good news so it was a nice change for her. She couldn’t tell us what happened, but it was nothing to do with his heart.

Our conclusion was that it was a spiritual attack or a trigger point that messed him up. A friend also suggested that he could have had a mini-stroke and the Lord healed it before the tests were done. Some might suggest it was a panic attack, but it wasn’t that.

I find it interesting that this happened right after I wrote the post about The Power of the Name of Jesus Christ.

In any case, he was perfectly fine the next day. Since it happened at church, Caroline kept two of her friends informed via texts and they shared the news with someone else who got a note to our pastor to announce what was going on before the service ended. (Things moved that quickly. We were already on our way to the ER before the service even ended.) Our church family was praying for us through the entire thing. We were grateful for that.

So now we will find out how Samaritan Ministries works on the other side. We’ve just started our fifth year with it and we’ve thankfully never had to submit a need to share. It is a blessing to send out a check each month to another Christian household and know that we are directly meeting a need in the body of Christ. Now we will be on the receiving end.

This was the first time we’ve had any interaction with corporate medicine since January 2020 when we took Caroline to her former pediatrician for a respiratory infection. I specifically remember asking the doctor what he thought of the covid stuff in the news and he said he didn’t think it would be any big deal. Interesting.

Everything felt normal at the hospital and almost everyone was very kind and pleasant. There were only two people we dealt with who were wearing masks and they were (ironically) the least pleasant people with whom we interacted. Otherwise we were blessed with very nice nurses and doctors, something I started praying about as soon as I knew we were heading to the ER. We remarked we were thankful  this didn’t happened in the previous few years because Caroline and I would have been forbidden to even enter the hospital with David since neither one of us could wear a mask. So we gave thanks for that.

The only other interesting bit had to do with the ambulance. David rode by himself because Caroline and I ran home to grab a few things before we drove downtown. One of the first things the woman asked David was if he had been vaccinated. He said he had not. She said, “Good for you. Don’t get it.” Take that for what it’s worth. If I had been in the ambulance with him, I would have peppered her with questions because I’m guessing she has some stories to tell. David, however, is not wired like me and he wasn’t feeling the best so he didn’t discuss it any further.

So that was how we spent our nice open Sunday. Not very relaxing, but we now know that David has an incredibly healthy heart. That’s good to know. We’re thankful he is fine and the Lord protected him from any further troubles, whatever it was that made him so ill.

Category: Our Cozy Family Life3 Comments

Creating Work Zones In My Kitchen

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May 25, 2023 | Sallie Borrink
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View Full Post with Embedded ContentCreating Work Zones In My Kitchen

I finally accomplished my goal of cleaning out the kitchen cupboards and changing the functionality of it. David and Caroline were a big help and we’re all pleased with the results.

Compared to most houses you see online today, we have a relatively small kitchen in a relatively small house. Every bit of cupboard space must be carefully used. There is one smallish pantry cupboard to my left as I’m taking this picture that I didn’t include in the pictures. It’s technically more in the dining room area. We use that for food. 

We cook two meals at almost every mealtime. David and Caroline eat what they eat and I eat what my EoE requires. Because of this, we use different ingredients, different tools, etc.

So one of the big changes was to assess which tools in the kitchen they use and make sure they are all in one area. All of the things I use are in another area. I know this seems rather obvious and it is. We simply hadn’t gotten around to doing this.

For example, I never use the cheese shredder because I cannot eat dairy. But the cheese shredder was stored in the left part of the kitchen where I do my meal prep which meant any time they needed it they had to come into where I was doing my food prep. The same thing with the liquid measuring cups. We have different cutting boards so I don’t get cross contamination from their foods, but their cutting boards were stored in the lower cupboard where I am usually standing. We have different pots and pans which were stored in two different areas and intermingled. We know which ones are mine and which ones are theirs, but we didn’t have them in separate zones which we do now.

So David and Caroline now have all of their regularly used meal prep items primarily in these cabinets in this corner. They work on the counters to the left and right of the sink. 

All of my things are in this corner.

There is still some overlap since they have many more tools than I do. For example, the spices are in my zone even though I don’t use most of them. A lot of their bakeware is in my zone. I also have the flour, sugar, and oats in my countertop space, but it makes the most sense to keep them there on the counter even though the only one I use is the sugar. If we had a bigger kitchen, we would have more options but we make the most of what we have. 

Yes, we do have two toaster ovens and two coffee makers due to the risk of cross-contamination of my food.  

The one thing we did not do in our big clean out and rearrangement was switch out the shelf liner. I would have liked to have done it, but I knew it would slow down the process significantly. So for now we simply wiped down all the shelves, washed everything, and organized things where they made the most sense.

I’m really pleased with the results and this is a huge item done on my to do list! 

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Category: Homemaking, Our Cozy Family LifeTag: Clutter, Eosinophilic Esophagitis, Home Organization2 Comments

I’ve Lost My Margin

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May 17, 2023 | Sallie Borrink
15 Comments
View Full Post with Embedded ContentI’ve Lost My Margin

I’ve written about the importance of margin in life since very early on in my blogging days. It’s a principle that we’ve consistently tried to apply to our life.

Well, I lost my margin earlier this year and I’m struggling to get it back.

There are a few reasons for this, but the primary issue is that I lost the margin in my Sundays and it has snowballed into a loss of mental margin in my life. Caroline is feeling it as well. I’m not sure what the answer is, but wow. You can know something is true and live it consistently to the point you almost take it for granted, but when it gets messed up… It’s so noticeable the way it negatively impacts your life. We’ve both been in that on-the-verge-of-tears-from-lack-of-downtime feeling so many times in 2023 I’ve lost count.

So that’s what I’ve been up to and why I’ve not been doing much around here. I’ve been mentally tired from lack of introvert downtime and when I’m tired, I’m indecisive. And when I’m indecisive I don’t feel like doing anything that requires much effort. For some reason the older post Parenting and Homeschooling an an Introvert became popular today. I saw it ranking in my sidebar and read it again as well as some of my comments. Still so incredibly accurate. I wrote it when Caroline was almost six and then left a lengthy comment when she was almost 13.5 years old. It’s all still true.

We celebrated It’s A Girl Day and Mother’s Day this month. Thankfully we’ve been doing well with our homeschooling since I’ve prioritized that above everything else. Caroline and I have been playing Yahtzee almost every school day for the past few weeks and having lots of fun with it. David and I are finally watching the Victoria series they bought for my birthday last year. We’re half way through Season 3. I watched it in real time on PBS and then on Amazon Prime at one point so I’ve seen it a few times. David has never seen it so he’s enjoying it. At least I feel like I’m accomplishing something by watching the series with him.

It’s now the middle of May and I don’t have our winter clothes packed away because it feels like too much work. Yes, that’s how bad it’s been. Maybe this weekend I’ll get it done.

This too shall pass. Eventually.

Category: Our Cozy Family LifeTag: Margin15 Comments
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I’m Sallie, Christian wife, mother, and homeschooler. Welcome to my cozy corner of the world. Our little family lives a quiet simple life of home education, self-employment, and laughter. I share what I've learned to help others navigate this world with truth and beauty. Please start here. ♥ 

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