Tag: Children

My Life

Recently I have been debating what the next chapter of my life will hold.  My little one will be in first grade full-time starting in September.  I have had people ask if I was going to get a real job.  It had started to bring me down a bit.

I love standing at the bus stop waving to the girls as they head off to school. I love having the opportunity to give a hug and kiss as they step onto the bus.  I look forward to the stories as soon as they get off the bus after a busy day of learning.  I am the one to sit with my girls while they do homework and I am the one to answer the questions that arise from that homework.

We of course could be better off financially if I went back to work,  that is assuming I could even find a job.   I love my life, my husband and my girls.  I am sick and tired of feeling like I need to apologize for wanting to take care of my family.  I do the laundry, I clean our home.  I am the taxi service for karate, CCD and soccer.  I handle all medical and dental appointments. I ensure that my ever-growing girls have clothes that fit and food on the table.

I want to be present. I remember track meets with my friends parents wishing I could see my mother rooting for me.  I remember wishing just once.

My job keeps me pretty busy, and I love every minute of it! I will apologize to no one for wanting to continue to do it.

Closure

While other celebrated Independence day last year, I laid perfectly still in a hospital bed,  IV’s and monitors attached everywhere.  Glass walls ensuring not a second of privacy. Less than 48 hours removed from a bilateral prophylactic mastectomy and DIEP flap surgery,  I laid in the ICU with crazy beeping machines and alarms because my heart rate continually dropped too low due to excessive (yet needed) pain medications.

I did not yet realize the struggles I was about to face in recovery.  I was not aware that my husband had moved a bed into the family room for me.  I did not think about how many additional surgeries would follow.  At the time I lived 10 minutes at a time. That is how long it took before the little green light on my hand-held pain button would light up communicating I could once again push for a dose of Dilaudid.

Tomorrow I see my surgeon and will be released from his care.  A final ending to this extremely long chapter in my life.  It has been a life changing set of months.  It has made me a better mother and wife.  It has helped me put things into better perspective as to what is really important in life, my family.

I am both lucky and truly blessed.

Sunshine on my shoulders….

I feel like it was just a week or two ago where I was on here complaining about the cold temperatures.  For weeks we had been stuck in grey skies, winds that felt like they would never end and damp chilly air.

Well, happy days are here again!  We seem to have jumped from winter right into summer and enjoyed an 83 degree day today with bright beautiful sun shine and perfect blue skies.  To make it even better, tomorrow looks to be a repeat and yesterday was almost as great!  A local news station does a little rating with the weather and today was awarded a perfect 10, something I had never seen.  I fully concur!

I have spent hours outside cleaning up the yard, pruning bushes and mulching.  As Frank and I get older this Spring clean up takes a little longer and causes more aches and pains but I still love it!  To me it is part of the pride of home ownership.  There is no race on getting it finished and I will be back at it tomorrow.  I enjoy spending time in the yard and am perfectly willing to put in the time and effort to make it the way we like!

In a few weeks we will be able to plant our veggie garden.  This is something that the girls and I do together.  I enjoy watching them as we watch the plants mature.  They take it very serious fully understanding that the care given to those little plants produce wonderful vegetables that we enjoy for months.  We grow so many cherry tomatoes that through the summer months we always have a bowl full left on the island for all day snacking. Last summer my beautiful little girls had to handle most of the harvesting themselves since I was recovering. Although they did a wonderful job,  I look forward to being fully involved this year! The area is prepped and ready, we even expanded again this year.

A harvest from last season
A harvest from last season

The weekend looks to be heading back into the 50’s.  I am sure that will feel really cold after these few days.  Until then, I will fully enjoy every ray of sun I can!