Crawling Out From Under My Rock

Over the past six weeks, I cannot count the number of times I have come into my office and sat down at the computer, opened up this page and started a post.  Only to get pulled away by something else, sit here with a spinning head not knowing what to write about, or start writing and then realize I'm not making any sense and just pull the plug on the whole thing.

Today, it might be the same thing.  But hopefully I will finish this one.

The last six weeks of my life have flown by.  So much has happened in my little life in so little time.  Nothing too life altering, and I am very aware that these are first world problems, but it has been tricky lately.

First of all, I must say how profoundly sad I am for the loss of life, horrible injury, and loss of innocence in Boston.  My God.  And then the awful explosion in Texas.  Such devastation, and I am left feeling like a silly little girl from being affected by my little problems.

My children have had to see so much.  They have endured the loss of many close family members, and have had to suffer through watching three of them get sick, suffer, and eventually die.  They have had to learn about the horror at Sandy Hook.  They have now been faced with the reality of terrorist attacks here in our own country.  There is no way to prepare them for all this crud.  There is only the reality of it, only the hope that lots of hugs and a stable home will keep them safe and happy.  We have been watching them carefully, answering any questions they may have, and making sure they still go to the movies, play with their friends, look forward to spring and baseball, and once in a while have days where they stay in their PJ's all day watching movies and eating crappy food.

That's all I can do in times like these.  Make my world small.  Hold my family close and make sure we can still laugh.  Pray and pray and pray.  Remain thankful that I am an American and that we are resilient.

And in the middle of it all, live my own unpredictable life!

What seems like a very long time ago, in reality a couple months ago, the hubby decided to do a small repair in our entry room.  In 24 hours that small repair avalanched into busting down a wall, jackhammering out the tile in the entryway, and then into jackhammering the tile in the rest of the kitchen and hall, removing the tile countertops, disassembling all of our cabinets, and removing the ceilings form the breakfast nook and entry.

So we are remodeling.  By ourselves.  From ceilings to floors, without an inch left untouched.  I was not ready.  I am more than excited that we are changing things, I'm actually thrilled, but I had no idea we were jumping into it.  That's how we roll around here.

I had NO IDEA how much of an impact this would have.  My house was turned into a disaster/construction zone in a matter of days.  Every minute I was awake and not doing necessary things like laundry or peeing, I was sanding, priming, painting, deconstructing and constructing along with my handyman hubby.  In the process we lost track of our home.  Lost track of time.  I was starting to forget things like turning in various papers to the school or that I had to get birthday presents for a party we were supposed to attend or that we had to eat.  Somehow.

Since the beginning of all this, three of the four of us have come down with the flu--the real thing--and recovered.  We have finished the kids' bowling season.  We had all kinds of school stuff going on, including the 4th grader choosing to play the TUBA!  We had Easter, a post for another time, also known as THE DAY THE KIDS FOUND OUT THERE IS NO EASTER BUNNY AND SANTA IS NOT REAL.  Sweet baby Jesus.  We have been struggling with some issues with the 5th grader's learning troubles.  Again, a post for another time.

And then, horror of horror, the hubby dropped a piece of wood on his foot and broke his big toe.  Badly.  A broken toe should not make life be put on hold, but it sort of did around here.  We went from getting ready to put the beadboard up on the ceiling to taking him to the doctor and finding out he needed surgery.  He ended up discovering that pain pills make him violently sick, hobbling around with a broken toe and no pain management for a week, to a foot surgery.  They inserted a big pin from  the tip of his toe, through the toe, and into his foot.

AUGH!!!  He has to have it in there for four weeks, and is unable to use his foot normally.  Obviously.  And to add insult to injury, he then got spinal headaches, a condition where spinal fluid leaks from the hole from the spinal block during the surgery, and up into your brain.  Horrific.  We had to take him in for a blood patch, where they gave him another epidural--needle in the disk above the one with the previous hole.  They injected some of his blood in there to block the spinal fluid.  EW.  But he felt better right away.

So the poor hubby has been pretty much laid up.  He does not tolerate that well, folks.  He's not a guy that sits around much, so this has been challenging.  He has missed a ton of work.  Our project has come screeching to a halt.  And we are still living in a construction zone.  I have over time found ways to cope, getting at least a couple rooms cleaned up and livable, but it has sort of been nuts.

He is the coach this year for the kids' baseball team.  I had to go in his place to the coaches meeting recently. I was the only girl in the room.  But he's going to have to start the season with crutches.  Poor dude.  He has to go with the 5th grader to their 3-day camping trip in a couple weeks.  He has a big dad-kid day coming up with the 4th grader at school.  And we have a kitchen that needs a little (ahem) attention.  This toe thing could not have come at a worse time.

But we soldier on.  That's all we can do, right?  And when you hear about all the other tragedies in the country, it really puts things into perspective.  So I'm putting my big girl panties (I hate that word and I promise you I will never use it again) undies back on and taking my life back.  Now that y'all know where I've been, I hopefully will be back again MUCH, MUCH sooner.  Thanks for checking in.