Our Adventure called Life

My father wasn't released the following day as I had hoped. He wasn't released the day after that either. We ended up keeping my mother from Saturday to Saturday. At first I had taken a couple days off work to stay with her. I was concerned what would happen if I left her alone. By the third day, I had to return to my job. I covered the house in notes saying "Don't Leave, Dad is coming to get you." I taped "Stay Here" notes on the doors and put granola bars out on the counter in the event she became hungry. We relocated some of our security cameras inside the house so I could view her while I was at work 4 minutes away. I had learned over the weekend that something as simple as making a peanut butter sandwich was more than she could process. As I greeted her and told her I was there to make her lunch, she told me she was starving and hadn't eaten all day. I knew she had but must have forgotten, because I had fed her breakfast that mornin...

There's so many little moments I look back on now and wonder if it was the disease. Years ago my husband started commenting on how bad my mom was at making coffee. I just added more creamer and drank it down, not giving the stale tasting coffee a second thought. She had been making me coffee for years, maybe her pot just needed to be de-calcified or maybe she was cutting back on the amount of beans used? Eventually, it just became easier for me to always take her a Starbucks than have her brew us a pot. There was a strawberry pie incident that left the first (and only) bite of pie sizzling on our tongues. She had been making this pie my entire life, but surely it was a simple ingredient mistake, nothing that I should to be alarmed about. As my grandparents aged and required moving from the town of Santa Claus to the same town as my mother, she became the caregiver for their daily needs. Besides working at the library, she was now taking my grandparents to every doctors ap...

At first I thought the repeated questions were because she wasn't paying attention.  Between chasing after two small children and keeping the house clean, I was quick to grow agitated as I didn't have the patience to repeat myself over and over to another adult.   The repeated questions weren't frequent enough to cause concern.  I blew it off as lack of focus in the midst of a busy life happening around us.   Over time, it wasn't just the questions that were being repeated.  It started also being casual statements to start a conversation.  "Isn't the sky so pretty today?"  or   "The kids are getting so big."  It was this repetition that created a gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach.  Something wasn't right and I seemed to be the only one that noticed. On the phone one evening with my sister I decided to ask if she had noticed the change.  I was nervous to ask not because I was afraid she would become u...

Tonight, as I sit on the couch listening to the sound of our children breathing deeply as they dream about their days, I can’t believe that this moment has come.   After 7 years, tonight is the night before my return to the work force as a full-time employee.   Excitement and nerves twisting together prompting me to write about this new chapter in our lives.      When this blog started many years ago, I was sitting in a comfy chair at Borders bookstore.   Anyone else remember that store?   I was newly engaged and planning a wedding.   I wanted to start a blog to capture each memory I was having during that exciting time.   Our mountain wedding came and went and blogging about my high-risk pregnancy took center stage.   Fast forward a few pages and suddenly I’m a new mom potty training a 6-month-old and soon after finding out we were expecting again!   Many blogs were devoted to milestones the children were reaching and t...

Each summer I ask the kids if they are interested in going to Vacation Bible School and each year they say "no."  We don't have a "home church" and visit a couple different churches a handful of times throughout the year.  So I understood their hesitation in attending.  However, this year when I asked, Paisley responded "let me think about it."  A few days later he said he wanted me to sign him up.  Lila (overhearing the conversation) said she wanted to go too!  I located the forms on the Internet and sent them in. The church is located in the little town we live in, but I was unsure about who would be involved.  I asked the kids if they would like me to volunteer, such as to help with crafts, snacks, etc, and they said they would like that.  I sent in my own form to assist, filled out the background form, and the next week I was sitting in my first VBS volunteer meeting. I didn't know a soul in the room, which was a little nerve-racking. ...

I hope you read the title as if you were hearing Alice Cooper sing his hit from 1972, "Schools Out." Pre-school 2014 I could ask where the time went, except I know exactly where it went. It slipped past us while we've been outside enjoying the spring weather. It crept around us while we've been at the ballpark 2 nights a week. It blew through our hair while we planted flowers and pulled weeds, and dripped off us like water from the slip in slide. We've been soaking it up in daily routines, only taking time to notice its passing as a milestone pops in front of us, causing us to notice the date on the calendar. This milestone of completing pre-k isn't monumental. He's not going to a different school this fall or taking a job that has him moving out of our home. He's taking the step of partial school days 3 days a week to being at school all day everyday.  It's not monumental, but it's big.  A change for all of us. This boy...the boy th...

Let the road trips, holidays, family gatherings, and every other moment in between of 2017 begin!!