fail.

no excuses. i've simply just neglected the blog. this post starts a series of updates from march, april, and may that should bring you up to basics on my life. it has been a roller coaster of good days and bad days, good news and bad news, life and death...i have questions there are no answers for, but i figure it may be worth a try to  post them here. stay tuned.

WavyBel Ballers - March Madness Fundraiser!

My friend Kelly has come up with a brilliant fundraiser for our friends who are continuing their fight for their baby girl. Right now it is just waiting, waiting and more waiting as the KS supreme court decides if they do or do not want to hear the appeal (made by the birth father). We hope they don't want to hear it so that Matt & Molly can finalize Wave's adoption and their family of four will be recognized as "official" in legal terms. I hope you'll consider this easy way to help ease their financial burden and have a little fun. 

Play for Wave!

Join the WavyBell Ballers Bracket Group!

The NCAA Tournament has arrived!  For the next few weeks, the sports world will be dominated with stories of upsets and victories... all leading up to the championship game in Indianapolis! 

It's so much fun to fill out a bracket and follow along as the tournament unfolds.

And this year... you can play for a great cause and a wonderful family - the Nagels!

As a fundraiser to help M&M take care of some of their enormous legal fees, I (Kelly Warren) am putting together the WavyBel Ballers Group on CBS Sports online. 

For a mere $10, you can play to win for WavyBel!

ALL money donated to "play" in the WavyBel Ballers group will be donated to M&M... with the exception of the winner.

The winner will receive a cash prize ranging from $50 - $100 (depending on the number of "players")!

I Want to Play!  How do I do it?

It's super EASY!  All you have to do is send me (Kelly) your email address and I'll sign you up. Click here to email me!  CBS will send you email updates on your standing within the group.

How do I make my $10 payment?
You can either give/mail me cash or a check in the amount of $10.  Ordinarily, the money would be due before the tournament starts, but in this case, I'm going to say that money is due by March 25th (the day the Sweet 16 games start).  If I have not received your money by that date, you will not be eligible to win.

IMPORTANT:  Deadline to be Included!
If you want to play in the WavyBel Ballers group, please let me know by 10 am on Tuesday, March 15th so that I have time to get you in the bracket.  No exceptions, please.

CONTACT ME: 

Kelly Warren

kellycwarren@gmail.com

Please pass this opportunity/information on to your family, friends, and anyone who would enjoy helping the Nagel's while enjoying the excitement of the tournament!

Enjoy the Tournament

and

Go Cats! 

lately

right now i'm listening to one of my favorite sounds. rain. it is so soothing... and so much more enjoyable when it isn't freezing on its way down.

i've been wearing flip flops for the past three days. they are liberating. yesterday i went to get a pedicure and made the mistake of not driving the 12 extra minutes to the place i really like in stanley. oh well, they are still in better shape then they were before i went in.

i've been going to the doctor. i had my annual "womanly" appointment with my favorite provider. she has moved from a women's only practice into a more diverse family care center and she is now a nurse practitioner in addition to being a certified nurse midwife... that means she can take over my primary care in addition to all the fun female stuff. this makes me very happy. she's got me doing all kinds of tests and labs to make sure my body is in good working order so that when stephen and i are ready to start trying for babies, we'll hopefully be aware of any potential issues with my health.

i've been going to more doctors... last summer and into the fall when i was walking in the mornings my right foot became increasingly sore... i saw my primary doctor (at the time) and she diagnosed me with morton's neuroma... it never quite made sense to me but i responded to the treatment (multiple cortisone shots), at least temporarily. even without exercise, the pain has been worsening and i've been sporting a full on limp for the past two months. i finally went to a podiatrist a couple of weeks ago and again this past week. he has determined i have more of a joint/tendon issue going on. i was irritated when he told me he would give me something for the pain and he came back with a script for a steroid pack which i've take countless times for allergic reactions, hives, and asthma... he was right though, after the first or second dose as the inflammation decreased, so did the pain. i'm also going to be fitted for custom orthodics, hopefully soon, so i can my butt moving. i miss walking! between the pain and the post wedding laziness and winter, i've been pretty still.

i've been spending time with old friends. i'm in my 30th year and i'm loving all of the friendships i've been blessed with. my very first friend who lived across the street from me when i was two years old moved back to the kc area about a year or so ago... every few months we get together for dinner and talk and laugh and remember when... and we also talk about the future. relationships and connections with people never cease to amaze me. i have solid, quality friendships with a number of females. i wasn't very good at girl friends for a long time, probably due in part to my own insecurities... but now i'm surrounded by strong women who support me in every way and i do the same in return.

i've been working... a lot! due to some staffing changes at my place of employment, my caseload has temporarily grown by about 30 people leaving me with about 100 or so clients to keep track of. the person who these clients were working with prior to me wasn't the most reliable. needless to say, a lot of clean up has been necessary. i've been bringing work home with me for a month and am happy to say things are finally winding down a little.

i've been searching... trying to figure out what it is i want to do. there is no question i am ready for change. i'm just still trying to put together a picture of what that change will look like.

i've been obsessing over pad thai. lately i have had a taste for it and i can't stop eating it. it is really becoming a problem... but a very delicious problem indeed.

i've been reading your blogs. and i've been reminding myself that it is good to live in a world where we can keep up with each other. though many of you post much more interesting things than me, some of you seem to ramble just as surely as i do... i love that.

sadness.

i posted recently about one of my best friends and her fight for her daughter. you can read it here. sadly, yesterday they got news that the birth father has appealed to the kansas supreme court. now it is back to more waiting. in molly's own words,

"We are mostly sad because there was such a clear view of finish line at the end of the process and now we are back into it for at least a little while longer.  We hadn't really settled into winning the last appeal because as long as someone is trying to take your daughter you will not relax.  We had just hoped this would be it.  Wavybel turns two in June and I so badly want to be finished by then.  Now I don't know if that is possible or not. "

please keep my friends in your thoughts and prayers as they continue on this very difficult journey.

hey, i'm in a book club

i love reading but i'm terrible about taking time out to get lost in a book.

about 5 years ago i was in a book club. a book club that rarely read books. it was always more of a social outing, and that was fun, but eventually the girls talked about husbands and babies and things i couldn't relate to.  it was still fun, but i was on the outside of things, and it became less appealing. i'm not sure when it happened, but our "book" club sort of fell apart. 

when i was in college, both at k-state and at baker, i was forced to read.  i was given the opportunity to discuss the books we read, write papers about them, search for literary meanings, etc. somehow, i love this sort of thing.

my friends kelly and julie approached me recently about forming a book club and we just finished up our first book. it was "the help" by kathryn stockett. i highly recommend you pick this one up. it tells the story of three amazing women and the change they brought to their town during an impossible time. 

i had trouble getting started when i first picked it up a few weeks ago, and i ended up reading all 445 pages or so in 2 days. once i got started, i couldn't put it down. 

our book club met to discuss "the help" last thursday. i was anxious about our first meeting, not feeling particularly social, and not knowing what to expect. i was pleasantly surprised. three of the girls are new to me completely, and it was easy to fall into conversation with them. the other girls are all connected to some stage of my life. 

we all loved the book. and i love our book club. 

adam.

finding my way back to blogging is proving a bit challenging. i don't know if the problem is that i have nothing to say or if my life just isn't very interesting. either way, i'm trying to keep the posts fairly regular until this starts to feel natural again and i don't have to think so hard about what to write.

tonight i just want to share briefly about a movie i just finished watching and highly recommend checking out. it is called adam.  i saw a trailer for it last summer and received it in the mail from netflix weeks ago.  i wish it hadn't taken me so long to watch.

in short, it is about an average girl falling for a boy who has asperger's syndrome. i don't really want to give anything else away. it was a perfect little film with great acting and just the right soundtrack.

it has been too long since i curled up by myself on the couch with a good movie that made me think and laugh and cry and want to share about it immediately after finishing. go check it out.

rip.

for anyone interested....we finally captured mcgruber. it has been nearly a week since the little guy left us and there are no signs that he had any friends or family around. we are happy to be mcgruber free.