You know, I was 26 when you were born… And now that you are 24… I would like to tell you that the last 24 years of my life were the best years of my life.
It amazes me how time flies… To be honest… I have never wanted you to grow old. Selfish I know… But, look at you! You’re all grown up. Even to this day, I have not gotten over the fact that you are now an adult… ready to take on the world… I mean I bought you underwear and socks for your birthday still! Forgive my possessiveness, but I guess every mommy feels that way.
When you were born, you weighed a whopping 5lb. You were a very ornery baby… BUT every time you smiled…. you had this magical glint in your eyes that melted my heart. When your daddy first held you in his arms, I remember him telling me, “I made this.”
He was so proud of you! So am I, So is the BFG. You have grown up exactly the way we wanted you to… a strong… independent (yes this means stubborn) Soul. You always surprised us as a kid. You would do things without much nudging and still come up with solutions.
We are sure you will be able to handle the pressures of life with dedication as you always did in every circumstance. You can rest assured that your tribe will always have your back. Be kind and work hard. Remember what is important… Protect that same magical glint in the eye you have passed onto Sam… OH SAMMY!!! Everything will be okay Johnathon… it will… nothing will ever go as planned… but no one is more loved than you… and I know that you love that boy just as much…. He is so lucky… we all are to have you….
With the world today it is so hard to give advice… it is such a different world than I could have ever imagined…. but know this… I believe in you… I love you… and I wish you the very Happiest of Birthdays!!
We’ve all heard it before. “I hope you get one just like you.” It was usually said during a battle of wills or after a trip to the principal’s office or “making out with the foreign exchange student” and more than likely… muttered under their breath like a curse. Just wait for what? Super sweet baby snuggles? Adorable sleepy smiles? Nope.
Revenge in the form of a tiny version of yourself.
So instead of rolling my eyes… I respond the latest parenting woe by saying, “you were just like that,” … I remember how they handled it or how I wished they had handled it… Instead of feeling uncomfortable with having a mirror reflect my least favorite qualities back at me… I confront them and try to understand why we all cry when we’re frustrated or shut people out when they hurt us… And when they (the grandbabies) stand their ground and refuse to back down… I silently applaud their tenacity and calmly inform them that they’re going up against the masters of tenacity (These young parents got it from ME!) and they might want to check themselves before they wreck themselves.
Maybe it is not a curse after all…
Have you ever noticed a look of resignation on a child’s face? That moment when a grandchild gives in, and does what the parents say. You can tell that submission isn’t easy. Something happens in the shoulders. The head may droop. The step may be slow.
Go to bed now, young lady.
Rise and shine, it’s time for school.
Brush your teeth. Right now.
Two more bites of beans, or no dessert.
Hug your sister. She didn’t mean to trip you.
No more screen time for you,
And so it goes.
Those nagging reminders… Those marching orders… Those words often said in exasperation are teaching you self care… for your adult life…. because on the other end of the spectrum here…. with my children grown… in the house for weeks… those are the same things I tell myself as a form of self love. So listen to your Moms…. enjoy your kids rebellion… and then relish in the joy of grandkids…. this is what life is…. this story is brought to you by a mom who DESPERATELY needs to focus on the joy to get through the rest of this month… then I look forward to the next thing… and I don’t allow myself to go backwards… or stay stuck. We are BURIED in snow… nothing in my lab work looks good…. everything is swollen… and I am the most grateful person on this planet for ALL OF IT. because I am alive. and that means forward march! (see what I did there?)
I have intense seasonal depression, and I have turned it into a positive thing… I count down to spring… I build my fairy city…. today I was late logging into work… because I celebrated by taking an EXTRA long hot shower… taking time to moisturize and dress warmly… followed by making a hot cup of tea in a real mug…. not a disposable and toasted myself a bagel… even though I usually am not a breakfast person… before entering my SpareBedroomPaintroomStorageRoomMeditationRoomArtRoomOffice and lit a small incense and turned out the light so the only glow comes unnaturally from my computer monitor as I type this… and go within
In the coming year… I will celebrate 50 trips around the sun on this tiny rock …. I believe there are some habits I can let go of with the passing of the longest night… and I can welcome some new ones in…. but whether or not I make it through the 50th trip… or do anything beyond exist… I am grateful for this morning… this warm cup of tea… this nourishment… the love that I carry in my heart for people and places and animals… for my eyes that find a beauty in this grey bleak day… and likely it is the lightest today will be… and I am so grateful for my belief that I can make it through the dark that is coming… for it is also my friend… and I know that after today… the light begins its return.
I posted this poem on social media… I do not know who to attribute it to…. but it says perfectly my state of mind today… I hope whoever finds this … also finds rest… and peace… and light inside themselves in the darkness.
At the Solstice, the darkness of winter exerts its power and stakes its claim as the longest night of the year.
Yet, in the next breath, the darkness turns and starts a steady march to the shortest night of the year in summer.
Cycles of our lives. Our days. Our moments.
Hold on to the light. Spring is coming.
May your heart shine bright with peace and joy even in the darkness.
May your Winter Solstice be filled with expanding light, both within and without.
Globally, as of 18 February 2022, there have been 418,650,474 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 5,856,224 deaths, reported to WHO. As of 15 February 2022, a total of 10,279,668,555 vaccine doses have been administered.
Today our Governor held a press conference…. I who in the beginning of this all never missed a briefing. wasn’t aware of it ahead of time… part of my self care has been not watching and waiting … has been basically no “News” at all…. even the weather…. ha ha! So today I got the message that it was going to be a doozy a couple hours before it took place…. promptly forgot…. minutes before it started a different friend messaged and asked if I was watching…. so I did…. Here are the key bullets:
By March 31st our response will transition to what we are calling a “Steady State.” Our Department of Health will spend the next six weeks refining plans they have already started to develop to help get us there.
Some elements of the response, like testing and treatments, will transition to being the responsibility of our highly capable health care systems. This will allow our public health system to refocus on the elements of the response that a public health system would normally look after: disease surveillance, data collection and reporting, vaccinations, and public awareness.
This is not the “end” of the pandemic. This does not mean COVID-19 is going away. Or, that as a state, we are packing up and heading home. We will continue to see cases, and outbreaks, and hospitalizations, and, unfortunately, deaths. But it does mean that we are adapting how we respond to these things.
<Insert Deep Breaths Here>
I am SO ready…. I am Vaccinated… I am Boosted! It has been 2 years…. I have focused so much on the world and community these last 2 years… that I haven’t really talked about what condition I personally am in…. So here’s a run down:
They sent “High-Risk” people home from work- That was me…. Work is critical to me… not the money (trust me LOL) but because of my auto-immune issues it really was the last thing I could do…. Cant walk much or well…. etc… you know the drill…. so work kept me out in the world…. and then it was gone. (Not the work, the out in the world part)
Determined not to lose any strength or endurance…. I launched into some yoga poses…. a stepping machine…. and a drive daily.
All that stopped.
Then the stomach cancer.
Even walking or standing in my own home became hard.
So That Stopped.
Stomach cells of doom scraped out!
Return VERY intermittently to the office.
This week I was in my two days…. Last week too…. 4 out of the last 14 days I went to the outside…. at the end of the 4th day? I broke out in rashes and sunburned joints…. To say that I have lost ability is the understatement of the decade…. I’m not mad about it… hell no… I AM ALIVE…. and I am SO HAPPY to be alive.
But
Well….
I am going to need to get some strength back….
Look… I know I wont walk well again… I understand that without a hamstring walking distances is impossible…. but I would like to be able to sit in an upright position and engage in thought and conversation without it completely draining me of strength and energy…. so I’ve got some work to do.
I’ve got A LOT of mental health work to do as well… as well as spiritual work.
Spring is coming… I say that a lot… like a Mantra…. it is my mantra… this isn’t the game of thrones people! (though it has felt like it)
I am concerned that if right now it were required of me to work in office again full time, I would have to resign… (this is just conjecture btw. none of this is happening) …
I am also concerned with how to go out into the outside and do the things I love… without the people I love…. I have lost so many….
I am committed to doing both of these things however.
Baby Steps.
Now…. Lets take that situation I have shared about myself… my life… my well being… and apply it to the world… when you (like I often do) shake your head at the madness… the foolishness… the cruelty of the world… lets pretend it is me… and help it along… be patient with it… because you love it and know it is worth it (I really am so fortunate to have people feel this way about me, including myself)
Lets have the HARD conversations from a place of love…. and with grace have them often.
Lets not give up… or throw in the towel…
Lets celebrate the fact that we are still here… a little more weak… a little more soft…. a LOT more grey…. but here none the less.
Baby Steps.
After all… like they shouted from the rooftops in the beginning….
We are in this together.
My Fairy Sign Prediction from 2 years ago… is my biggest hope… and promise now.
Globally, as of the 19th November 2021, there have been 255,324,963 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 5,127,696 deaths, reported to WHO. As of 18 November 2021, a total of 7,370,902,499 vaccine doses have been administered.
I have been keeping an unpublished version of this…. adding to it periodically…. but Today was the day I asked my Tall Child if I could blog this….. so lets catch up – I left off my pandemic timeline April 2020… Sure I have written SO MANY updates since then… mostly if not all local and personal… but lets look at this from a broader scope… Here is what has happened
I have collected most of this from the Yale Medicine site, who has tracked events and written articles and laid them out by date- which made it easier for me to pick and choose events to mention each month.
May: Experts focus on “flattening the curve,” After months in lockdown, states slowly begin a “phased reopening,” based on criteria outlined by a very angry temper tantrum throwing Trump in coordination with state, county, and local officials. Meanwhile, scientists across the globe are in a race to develop vaccines.
June: Efforts to reopen the economy leads to new cases, and the curve is not flattening. THIS IS MY SHOCKED FACE!!! Experts point to the dangers of large gatherings and use terms like “clusters” and “super-spreader events.” all while Tucker Carlson and crowd started suggesting this actually was all fake and planned.
July: Officials debate the best scenarios for allowing children to safely return to school in the fall.
August: The first documented case of reinfection is reported in Hong Kong. On a broader scale, COVID-19 is now the third leading cause of death in the U.S. (after heart disease and cancer). Ironically here locally, this is when school started… given the choice of online or in person…. because you know…. we underpay our teachers… so lets rub salt in the wound. We kept our child home.
September: The school year opens with a mix of plans to keep children and teachers safe, ranging from in-person classes to remote schooling to hybrid models. Meanwhile, the WHO recommends steroids to treat severely and critically ill patients, but not to those with mild disease. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that people who had recently tested positive were about twice as likely to have reported dining at a restaurant than were those with negative test results.
October: President Trump tests positive for COVID-19 after a gathering in the White House Rose Garden where multiple people were also thought to have been infected. And though rumors swirled that he was WAY sicker than reported… he did the infamous balcony removal of his mask like a petulant toddler- Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) grants full approval to a drug called remdesivir for treatment of COVID-19.
November: Cases rise again as cold weather drives more people indoors—the U.S. begins to break records for daily cases/deaths. Many officials around the country bring plans for reopening to a halt. As the holidays approach, the CDC urges Americans to stay home, limit the size of their gatherings, and avoid mixing with people who don’t live in their household. I saw NO ONE outside of my home for this holiday.
December: The FDA grants Pfizer-BioNTech the first Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for an mRNA vaccine, a new type of vaccine that has proven to be highly effective against COVID-19. A week later, it grants another EUA to Moderna, also for an mRNA vaccine. But, as vaccinations begin, major variants of the virus are beginning to circulate. The UK reports that a new variant of the virus, called B.1.1.7, could be more contagious. By the end of the month, B.1.1.7 is detected in the U.S. We had Christmas outside with the kids and grandkids… for about 45 minutes freezing cold.
2021
January: In the U.S., the number of cases and deaths begins to fall. But more variants are spreading, including one first identified in South Africa called B.1.351, which is reported in the U.S. by the end of the month. Around the world, the race is on to vaccinate as many people as possible in time to slow the spread of the variants. Researchers work to understand how deadly or contagious variants are compared to the original virus. Tucker Carlson and Q-anons? well= they decide this is poisonous or will change your DNA… sooooo…. OH BUT PAUSE FOR AN INSURECTION!! okay, carry on
February: There is not enough vaccine supply to meet the demand. But the Biden Administration expects the addition of a third option (by Johnson & Johnson) to make vaccines more available to everyone. Meanwhile, companies are working to tweak their products to make distribution easier and to control new variants. So, while there may be hope that the end is in sight for the pandemic, it’s highly probable that we will still be wearing masks for some time to come. We cross the 500,000 death count in the US.
March: According to a 120-page report from WHO, the novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19 probably spread to people through an animal, and probably started spreading among humans no more than a month or two before it was noticed in December of 2019. The report says a scenario where it spread via an intermediate animal host, possibly a wild animal captured and then raised on a farm, is “very likely.” Did you know this? No? Why do I know this?? Because I am SO TIRED of people saying it was made in Wuhan by Fauci. Tigers in the Zoos keep testing positive!
April: The global tally of deaths from Covid-19 surpasses 3 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins.
May – July: According to figures published by the CDC, the more contagious Delta variant accounts for an estimated 93.4% of coronavirus circulating in the US during the last two weeks of July. The figures show a rapid increase over the past two months, up from around 3% in the two weeks ending May 22.
August – September: The FDA authorizes an additional Covid-19 vaccine dose for certain immunocompromised people. The US FDA grants full approval to the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for people age 16 and older, making it the first coronavirus vaccine approved by the FDA. US CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky diverges from the agency’s independent vaccine advisers to recommend boosters for a broader group of people — those ages 18 to 64 who are at increased risk of Covid-19 because of their workplaces or institutional settings — in addition to older adults, long-term care facility residents and some people with underlying health conditions. So I got mine!!!
October: Pfizer/BioNTech say they are seeking FDA emergency use authorization for their Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11.
November 2, 2021 – Walensky says she is endorsing a recommendation to vaccinate children ages 5-11 against Covid-19, clearing the way for immediate vaccination of the youngest age group yet in the US.
I researched the average span of an apocalypse in dystopian novels… if it were zombies-100 days… Well… we are past that… so I guess those guys aren’t REALLY zombies…. the average length is 10-12 years. We are still at the beginning guys…
Globally, as of 7 September 2021, there have been 221,134,742 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 4,574,089 deaths, reported to WHO. As of 6 September 2021, a total of 5,352,927,296 vaccine doses have been administered.
I don’t know what to say about that… Ive been to the office a few times… but most days am still remote… due to the air quality and the hybrid schedule… I got my booster on the 27th of August
(because I am a tiny bit of cancer surviving autoimmune super hero) – so there is that. We are trying to be as safe as we know how… We have sent the smallest child back to school… high school in person even… she is vaccinated and masked (at least for as long as we see her) … The tinies are also in school again… and now I just find myself holding my breath… and waiting… waiting to see what more we can do….
I hold my newest youngest tiny close as he grows… born in this pandemic and thriving….
and I hold my breath and I wait some more… for anything to give… I am scared… so scared… I worry for those I love… for those I don’t… for all of us. 1 week from today I will reach the 48th anniversary of my entrance to this planet… I never thought I would live this long… to see all of this… I intend to see more. I watched the Afghanistan war begin… and 20 years later end… We will mark the 20th anniversary of 9-11 in four days…. all of those lives snuffed out…. yet we lose almost as many daily now…. I will march for Women on Oct 2nd (march might be symbolic as my legs do not really work well) …. DAMMIT I SURVIVED TRUMP!!! something has got to give…. anything….
and so I paint… and record as we near the 2nd year mark of this very long apocalypse
I am home sick today… I woke up at 5 am with vomit in my mouth and ran for my pee slime covered toilet… next to my Charlie Bosephus’s litter box. Really an eye opener into the quality of my life .. but really things obviously have not changed that much. I literally laughed out loud typing that… and surely I will publish this.
I do not know how to bridge the gaps in my crazy story of a life… I last left off with I had started therapy… Im going to take one step further back and tell you about the time my “Fever of unknown origin” sent me to the ER… which then led me again to an infectious disease doctor… although I do not believe that is where my latest journey started… I believe wholeheartedly my journey started with CMV… a few years ago… and this is my second infectious disease doctor… It was in the beginning of march I went to his office… and I had been told I was the very first patient he had seen since arriving in the United States. So in he came… and started to question me about what had been going on… and I listed off for him the same ridiculous list of viruses I have been listing in previous posts… but shockingly… my fever had finally gone… as mysteriously as it had arrived 5 MONTHS PRIOR… and he looked at me and said. “So you are not sick now, I do not know what to do for you”… and guys… I lost it… I cried… this made this man extremely uncomfortable… so much so that he had to leave the room… but when he came back he was curious why I kept crying… and I told him that it was so awful… so awful that I was seeing a counselor over it.. that I was so tired… and my legs hurt so much… all the time… and I continued to cry… so he left the room again.
Then he did something. He hand wrote orders for a VERY specific blood test… that could only be given in a blood hospital… it was like a super secret blood hospital… but they wouldn’t do the test… because you see… I do not have aids… and security escorted me out of the special super secret agents of shield blood place. They sent me to another lab down the road who after an hour of calling around did the blood work required… blowing out a vein in my arm and spraying this young technician in blood making her look like a serial killer… it was gross… and then they didn’t refrigerate the blood like they were supposed too… and a week later I had to do it again.
30 days later this doctor… the first one to do something… called me… he said to me “I have found an immunologist that has agreed to take your case… he probably won’t be able to diagnose you… but he may be able to help you” i cried again and thanked him profusely… he told me that he had found a very serious problem in my blood work and I was very sick… his english was not perfect but he insisted that I was sick and if I felt sick, I needed to let myself be sick.
Two weeks later the Immunologist called and said he would be wasting my time bringing me in to see him… that I needed to go to the cancer hospital… as soon as possible… that I had an abundance of abnormal lymphocytes in my blood… and I needed to have a bone marrow biopsy… and be treated.
<cue the circus music> you can imagine what this did to our mental health. School ended and we took our annual trip to the lake… add 2 bouts of Hand Foot and Mouth and one VERY ugly bone marrow biopsy/harvesting and in the first week of june I sat in the Cancer Specialists Hematologists office for the results. I do not have Leukemia. The abnormal cells are not coming from my bone marrow.
<Cue the circus music again> July we celebrated birthdays. and another round of Hand Foot and Mouth.
Here we are in the first week of august, they have drawn blood again and I will see the immunologist finally in a few weeks when he has those results.
Today? Today I think I ate something bad last night for dinner, or have a quick coming and going stomach bug.
Small child got me a sprite and made me an egg before he went to work.
I called (okay texted) in sick.
I have not had a fever since March. Well not one of unknown origin at least… Hand Foot and Mouth brings one
I am still seeing the therapist, about once a month, to make sure I am not tanking mentally and emotionally.
I am slowly building my stamina up on energy… I am usually good for one outting a day… most days that is work… on the weekends… it is something a little more fun… and then I am on the couch or in bed other than that…. this last month I have been doing better… been up for a couple of outtings. Mr Amazing is doing all of the house work… grocery shopping… cooking. I would be completely lost without him.
I have asked my family in my home to be there for me … and they have… I have not reached out much beyond that other than a shoulder to cry on…. or usually scream my frustration into. and I have not been available for people reaching out to me for company or help. That is hard for me to swallow. But I have been honest about it. I am doing what I can. This is it.
Today I washed the puke out of my hair and blogged about it. This is progress. Not perfection.
Once again… dear blog… you are where I process all things that I cannot contain in my brain… I’ve posted about my health (If not previously mentioned, add Staph, MRSA, Shingles, Algae, New Zealand Honey, and New pillows to the list of things going on at my house) Well… Then on top of those things… Small Child has moved out…My best friend… My survival strategy for all helpless feelings has moved out…. gotten a tattoo…. All that being said… and 3 months of a “fever of unknown origin” has led me to some measures in my life that I am quite proud to say I am taking…. First off – I am getting help. I LOVE Therapy… I always have… and at least five times in my adult life to process one traumatic event or another I have returned to therapy briefly to keep my self in check…. to check and make sure I am okay… well… this compounding year didn’t really have an event I could point to and blame and process…. in fact… it seems to be my new quality of life… and I found myself speaking words about not wanting to continue life.
Don’t Panic… I just put voice to things that we all think (if you are someone who feels and thinks too much that is) … and I took the appropriate steps… and I spoke to someone… and returned a few weeks later to check in… ready to tell her that I was okay… and I appreciated there being people to go to when I felt helpless…. when she looked me in the face and called “bullshit”
Then she posed a question to me…
Do you wish you had died last week? – I thought through the week, the unbreakable fever Saturday morning and Sunday evening, and then I thought about my time with the tinies… I reflected on it all… good and bad… and found to my relief… no I did not wish I had died last week.
But at the beginning of the week you stated you were done, not that you would ever do anything to hurt yourself, but you were okay with just being done – I reflected again… and realized I had been wrong in retrospect
Has anything truly changed in your feelings and mind set this week? I thought that through and shook my head… no not really even though I was here to tell her I was okay and done seeing her… nothing had really changed… I had just taken the appropriate steps and safe guards… because that is what I do… I FORCE myself to do this…. I’ve been FORCING myself to do this my entire adult life.
Do you think if I asked you next week if you wished you had died… you would wish you had? So as I sit there… giving up…. being okay being done… having lived a good life…. I realized something… I most certainly would not wish I had died in a week.
So that is what we are going to focus on… and as she proceeded to explain to me that I was behaving and doing all the right things… EVERYTHING I SHOULD… my perspective was the issue… and you know what?
I felt something I had thought I had aged beyond… I felt those little blasts of neurons in my brain firing off as it adjusted to thinking in a way that it hadn’t before… you know what I mean… that feeling you get when you learn something new or try something new? it is far and few in between when you live this adventure of a life I do for as long as I have.
I’m sure if you are reading this and you know me at all… you wonder how someone who takes so much energy and time putting it into making life wonderful and being grateful for the beauty in it could still feel this way… Well its simple… I knew what I HAD to do… and I was doing it… I was FORCING myself to do what I had to do…. because as the saying goes…Fake it til you make it…. your feelings will catch up.
My Feelings Did Not.
I want you to try something new – So here we go, I am trying something new… rather than FORCING myself to do all of these things I do… and stuffed all of those rules in a mental container… and I am going to try doing things because I feel like it… rather than counting the hours I sleep to make sure I am taking care of myself and not letting myself go down the road of self destruction… and self sabotage… I am going to go to bed because I am tired. rather than forcing myself to eat exactly one serving of sweets… because I do not want to punish myself or deny myself or allow myself to eat the entire package … all these rules… Im going to eat what I feel like… as I feel like it… and rather than FORCE myself to only wash my hair as often as saving the environment or extending my color allows (come on… say it with me… we all have these rules) I am going to wash my hair because I want too… I am not going to watch the clock endlessly calculating every minute to make sure everything is taught… learned… taken care of… I am going to enforce bed time because I need her to go to sleep.
Im going to try not caring… because I have turned caring into the most curious form of self abuse anyone has ever heard of…
That being said… If this doesn’t go well… or it seems like I do not “want” to do the things that I need to do to be a functional adult… we will try something new. She also said the first thing that escaped that mental container… was what really needed to be done… not my imaginary rules of conduct.
So at 5am this morning… I woke in a full panic… about the amount of junk in my house… and the order it is kept.
This is an ongoing battle for me that I shove way down deep because, Im lazy, Im tired, Im sick
Friday… the dumpster is coming.
because I do not care what people think, what is morally correct, whose feelings may or may not need taken care of, or whose responsibility it is.
I am dejunking because I want to.
Cue the Circus Music… Life is about to get interesting.
Its been over two months since Ive posted. Believe it or not, Things have been relatively good. Im working full time again, and that has not only halted my painting, but it has made me want to write again. So I finished my Novella and submitted it to a writers group for feedback. Look at me just continuing to act like I’m a writer. Like I believe in myself and have dreams. I also did something Id never done before while gone- I took a vacation. With a friend. Like not a child. Although I would have liked it to be Mr Amazing. He needed to be home with the smalls. work and stuff. So off to San Diego we went. It was amazing. I like the new job enough. I like that it is just a job. Not an all consuming hurricane of ambitions. I miss freedom. I miss taking care of everything at home so no one else had to worry about it. But I do not miss the self loathing that came with unemployment. Perhaps I will even earn a pension finally. 44 years old and finally thinking about my future. Its kind of nice. Mr Amazings small is with us full time now and I am enjoying that more than I can say. My Small, dropped on class, but kept the other and has so far survived his practice semester at college. WOOT!
I miss painting, and find my little bits of down time that I do have being spent on the couch under a pint of ice cream… but that may be due to the weather more than the new job. Knees. Again. I am still working out a couple of times a week and having my beautiful friend from the library come use the shower at the gym. I love her. Life. It continues. Today I find myself in the same offices writing this as I did about 5 years ago with my small. But today I am with Mr. Amazings small. I am hoping beyond hope that it gives her the support system she needs to succeed in all things. Tall child and the tinies are absolutely perfect in every way. Im sure she would disagree. That she struggles. But to me. They are the epitome of perfection and I love them… hard.
I intended to write more… but here are a few pictures instead. It will be several weeks before I get feedback on the novella. Im not nervous. I know it is my story. I know it is to be told. I just haven’t found its outlet yet. I had 50,000 words written before I edited it down to 20,000 and I am only half way through. I found a novella submission and sent it there. even though it is only half told. Because I could. LOL Fear Not my dears.
Soooooo Im gonna write… because I have so much in my head that is just screaming to come out….
I survived the summer… and the arts festival….
The above is a brief photo tour… but let me tell you about it… First off I stayed home this summer (Well not really… ever) but I mean I was unemployed…. So I brought in a Foreign exchange student and did an art show… and had what was probably the most stressful, and greatest summer of my life…. Aina was the College aged student who came to stay with us, and it was kismet… she was like our child from another country…. she is 21 and we instantly fell in love with her. The last photo is all of us crying as we said goodbye.
Small Child enrolled in school… I did the art festival… in 103 degree weather… and marked that shit right off my bucket list. We spent time with family and friends… the two tiniest tinys turned 1 and 2… and well…. look through the photos… memories were made… and times that will forever be irreplaceable are in our hearts.
I was able to stay with my smallest step daughter… who possibly will be us full time going forward.. and it was something that I wouldnt change a thing about. (More on that later)
The kids started school… and this morning I accepted a state job in the office of education. This is a whole different world for me, as Ive always had a fast paced marketing world… but I am turning 44 next month and have nothing to show for it. The state will offer 401K and benefits and some stability. Leaving me to pursue my passion outside of work.
Currently ive stopped with the street art… im sure just for a few days honestly… Im sick again… double antibiotics who’s side effects are worse than the illness… but at the end of the ten days the infection will be gone…. Small child is in college… wtf…. smallest is in the 6th grade and my first tiny has started kindergarten.
September is coming… in 48 hours and for the first time in my adult life i welcome it (If september confuses you… browse september in the blog history)
I will start work… and I just now booked my first ever girls weekend… San Diego here we come!
Our final summer adventure was a trek to get into the path of totality for the eclipse (Cue the photo montage again…because im on antibiotics and cannot think straight to type)
I really dont know why some of those are upside down… but there you have it… it was the perfect ending to the perfect summer…. Perfect means all kinds of things to me…. especially now that it is over.
OH! also!… we stopped being renters in our home… and bought it
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Lastly…. This happened last night… and I need to say something
Mr amazing has been so fucking amazing… I cannot even tell you how blessed I am… this picture shows you how blessed… You see that HUGE family? its ours… And well… I am so grateful for everyone in it… but Mr Amazing most of all… He is my best friend… my biggest fan… and the love of my life. He has brought more happiness into my life than I can even express and continues to do so on a daily basis. I tell him all the time, but I think day to day he forgets that they are not just words… He is the best thing thats ever happened to me… and I love him beyond measure.
