Time May Fly...but Life Moves at the Speed of Light!

Just went back to read.  I had every intention to keep this blog up.  So I will.  I guess 1 or 2 posts a year is better than none at all in the grand scheme of things 50 years from now.

So a few things have happened this past year... 

The man and I got engaged.  It was kind of spur of the moment...well as spur of the moment as you can get after raising a family together for 10 1/2 years.  Our engagement was SO much more than I ever thought it would be, knowing the man.  I thought for sure he'd be distracted, annoyed with the planning, hands off.  He wasn't!  And even more surprisingly, the planning went very smoothly.  We agreed on just about everything and on September 10, 2011, we became Mr. & Mrs. on the beach surrounded by our friends and family.  It was THE most amazing day of my life (ok..so maybe the 3rd most amazing but still...)  I have never seen the man smile as much as he did that day.  Everyone smiled it seemed.  I've been told that everyone had a wonderful time.  I'm glad :o)

So then, a few short weeks after the wedding (16 days to be exact), after doing a final walk through with my sister at a house she was finally getting to buy around the corner from us for my parents and Mema, we noticed my dad acting...well...we'll just say weird.  We were heading out to grab some lunch and told him we were headed to the burger place.  He said he was hungry...wanted us to bring him back a donut...with cream cheese ice cream.  Now, my oddities didn't just happen.  I did get them somewhere, but this was well beyond our 'odd' normal.  We let him nap (he said he was just very tired) and picked up lunch...and a icing filled donut, just in case.   Back home for lunch, my father started asking when my father would be home.  HUH???   

Now let me backtrack a bit.  Our neighbor is a nurse.  She just happened to have off the day of the wedding and was able to come by.  Later that night after she went home, I was on the porch seeing people out when I noticed my neighbor leaving...with her father in tow...in his pajamas...at 11pm.  Next day, we learned that in the couple times she headed back to check on him during the reception and brought him food, he was fine.  So at 11 when he came out to talk for a bit, she realized he couldn't.  He was talking jibberish.  He had had a stroke!  (Fast forward, he's doing wonderfully now.  I've seen him out walking and seems to be doing really well.)  Now, I never knew that the jibberish talk was a sign of a stroke.  But because of them, I did now.

So, sister and I got dad in the truck and off to the hospital we went.  After initial tests determined that he did indeed have a stroke, he was transferred into a hospital in Philadelphia.  There they said there were multiple strokes.  Luckily, the only thing affected was his communication and although it was hard to understand him at first, through rehab and us learning to speak stroke, we can now hold a conversation with him that makes sense about 90% of the time.  Good enough for me.  He tends to get on my nerves...he IS my dad after all.  I love him and was NOT ready for him to go.  So 90% definitely beats the alternative.

Now, the reason my sister was buying a house around the corner from me in the first place, was so that my parents would be closer to me.  I'm home all day and can help, with much less planning than my sister who works a bazillion hours a week it seems.  I really didn't mean that I NEEDED to help them right away but such is life. 

So dad's in a nursing home.  We are preparing the house for them to move in to.  The man is back to work in Florida.  Kids are in school.  Life got busy quick.  We got them moved into the new house and a few weeks later, my dad is released from the nursing home.  WONDERFUL!!!  Now I have three of them in one house just a few hundred feet from my house.  Life should calm down now, right? 

Nope!  We brought my dad home Saturday afternoon (during a freak pre-Halloween snowstorm).  Got him settled.  Life was going to be ok...until Sunday morning when my mom found Mema on the floor in her bedroom at 7am.  Here we go again!!!

Mema was somehow bleeding internally.  Her blood count was down to 4.8.  Tough for a perfectly healthy adult.  Almost lethal for a 98 year old woman.  The hospital, after some wrestling with her, saw a fracture in her neck.  Now we are off to the trauma center and ICU.  ::sigh::  Fast forward...Mema is back home after some rehab (in the same nursing home we just checked my dad out of) and doing well. 

Thanksgiving has passed...Christmas is a few days away.  From September to New Year's, my year usually flies.  This year, it was a good thing I didn't even have time to blink because it is gone. 

B14 is now B15.  R5 is now R6.  M20 is now M21.  B11 is now B12.  M4 will be M5 in just a few days.  I'm pretty sure I'm really going grey now. 

There is still so much more to say, but reading this as I type has made me realize how much we've been through these past few months and I'm tired.  Tomorrow is cookie day in our house.  Sunday, we'll get to see Santa come to town to practice his route so we need to be ready with some cookies for him and his helper firemen. M21 will be home that day too.  And then the man gets home next week.  THEN, and only THEN, life will be perfect again...even if it is just for a few days.

I'm a very lucky woman.  I know this.  And I plan to enjoy every second of it.

See ya'll next year...

Wow!

A lot going on the past few days.  Horrible, horrible tragedy in Japan.  It is still ongoing with all of the problems the Nuclear Plant is having.  My heart and prayers go out to everyone affected by the earthquake, tsunami, fires, and nuclear meltdown. 

On an up note, I've made it passed hurdle number one.  I've had a hard time breaking passed a certain pain in the butt number on the scale and I did it!  All of these changes I've made in our foods and diet in general are working.  I wish it'd go faster, but I'll take slow over not at all any day.

I've discovered some new recipes to eat on a regular basis--balsamic chicken for one! OMG yum!! And healthy too.  It is also good with some melted fresh mozzarella and tomato on it. Mmm...  But now I'm going to try to get to the gym tomorrow morning before the man leaves for the union hall so to bed I must go...

Maybe I am...

...crazy that is.  Happy Wednesday!

I went to our rinky dink library yesterday at the suggestion of my very inspiring friend, Kris at  jerseygirlpioneer.blogspot.com.  I checked out every decent looking healthy cooking book they had. 

I've spent the last 24 hours perusing the books and writing down all of the recipes that interest me.  I'm still not done, but I have to get everything in order before I 'start' again. I'm very OCD about how everything has to be in order in my world before I can plan and concentrate.  When life is disheveled, my head is pure chaos too.  

Anyway, I've lost 10 lbs in the past couple weeks.  The man has lost about 13 since he was home last month.  Things are looking 'down' for both of us.  No reason to get off track now, right?  With spring right around the corner, I think having a jumpstart will make the spring/summer VERY productive for us as a family.  I'm really looking forward to losing my hibernation weight and baby weight and lazy weight and eat like crap for years weight.  I'll get there!!!

So stay tuned to see our meal plans, our meals in pictures and hopefully, some progress.

Day 2

So I made it back!  Today was uneventful, as least as far as I'm concerned.  Woke up feeling yucky.  Riley was yucky.  It was a good day for staying home and relaxing.  Little did I know I'd sleep the day away, only to wake up feverish and dizzy.  I missed the gym.  The girls missed dance class.  Like I said--YUCKY day.

Hopefully, I'll have something more interesting to say tomorrow.  Maybe some pictures?  We might head to the movies this weekend to see Justin Bieber's movie.  If you can't beat them, join them I guess.

Gotta start somewhere...

Might as well be at the beginning...


I've been a mom for 10 years now.  But my mom life didn't start out like most.  I went from zero to 3 kids in no time flat...literally. NO TIME!  The man and I met online and fell in love  ::sigh::  Then the man's children came for a visit and I fell in love again.  So cute at 1, 4, and 10.  Someone should have warned me!  Newly seperated, I thought I'd enjoy a quiet life in my little...umm...err....TINY apartment for a little while with my cat.  NOPE!!!  Soon, we had more people than we had rooms and it was time to move.  Bigger place, more rooms, and we could have a dog!!!  Life became a happy routine of school, Barney and family dinners.  Perfect.  Almost. We needed more! MORE!!!  Could the man make a baby boy?  Nope!  Enter -- R5 -- girl #4.  Life was complete.  Time for a bigger place.  Dog outgrew the apartment.  Kids outgrew bedrooms.  Our closets were bursting at the hinges.  We found our crazy, little, yellow house on the hill in 2005.  Life was good!  Then...what? No! Really?!?  Girl #5!!!  One more ride on this roller coaster. Then we are DONE!  No. Really. We. Are. Done.


We've had our ups and downs and round and rounds and here we are.  Right where we should be.  Well, almost.  The man now has a big bunch to support.  The woman has a big bunch to raise.  Life goes on.  One day we'll win the lottery and the man can stay home, but until then, I'll hold down the fort, and the kids will keep growing!


Ya'll come back now...