Smiling Mom

Dear Grandma Bryan,

So wri­ting this let­ter is pretty hard for me to do. Not because I don’t have fond memo­ries, I do!  But because I fear that I won’t be able to tell you elo­quently enough just how much I love you and how gra­te­ful I am for the life I’ve had.

I have lived a very bles­sed life.  A life filled with love, lear­ning and accep­tance.  I have grown up with the bene­fit of having a two-parent hou­sehold.  And, ama­zingly enough, my parents have loved each other throughout the good and bad times.  How lucky am I to have had this experience?

My mom is an ama­zing woman, a woman you rea­red.  A woman who you single-handedly rai­sed to be an adult.  For this I am eter­nally gra­te­ful.  When I look at you and your life, I see a woman who was for­ced into a life where you were requi­red to become a sin­gle parent well before your time.  You wor­ked hard and rai­sed three beau­ti­ful chil­dren who were, essen­tially, the same age.  I can’t even ima­gine!  But you did it!  You did it all while wor­king full time, paying a mort­gage, and pro­vi­ding your chil­dren with the things they wan­ted and nee­ded.  I admire you so much for this.  It must have been such a cha­llenge at times to keep it all together.

I have vivid memo­ries of Christ­mas Eve at your house from years ago.  I remem­ber all the cou­sins get­ting together to open pre­sents, eat din­ner, and play.  (I always wan­ted to eat at the bar! But usually had to sit at the kid’s table) We use to have so much fun.  I know this was a won­der­ful time in your memory as well, having your house filled with the sounds of laugh­ter and family.  One memory in par­ti­cu­lar that I have is when I recei­ved a huge Bar­bie head for a gift.  This head was equip­ped with lots of makeup, a girls dream!  So ins­tead of the inten­ded use, Bar­bie, I deci­ded to make up myself, my clothes, the car­pet, my cou­sins and just about anything I could find.  Need­less to say, the makeup disap­pea­red from my Bar­bie head by the next morning.

Each Christ­mas Eve as we drove home, I remem­ber watching the moon in the sky and searching for Santa’s sleigh.  These are memo­ries that I che­rish each Christmas.

I also remem­ber many days spent with you pic­king black­be­rries, peaches, and oran­ges.  I loved pla­ying on your jun­gle gym in the back­yard and pla­ying hide and seek with Jeff, Shauna, and Kathlyn.

But now, as I write you this let­ter, I’m hol­ding my daugh­ter, Ella, in my arms and rea­li­zing that it is because of you and the family you’ve crea­ted, that I am bles­sed with the life I have.

You have wor­ked hard, so hard.  You’ve lived a life filled with family, The Hea­venly Father, and friends.  You’ve crea­ted many knick-knacks to remem­ber you by.  Both my chil­dren have a blan­ket, made by you.  And each holi­day I take out my deco­ra­tions, the por­ce­lain Christ­mas tree, Hallo­ween cat and hat, Eas­ter bun­nies, and think of you.

And when I speak my daughter’s name, Ella, I am remin­ded of my his­tory, your mother, you.

Wri­ting this let­ter is extre­mely hard.  Time is never enough.  I don’t feel like I’ve had enough time with you, and neither have my chil­dren.  You, like­wise, didn’t have enough time with Grandpa Bryan.  But you will!  You are about to embark on a whole new jour­ney one filled with eter­nal love and hap­pi­ness.  For you, I’m exci­ted.  But for me, sel­fishly, I feel sad as our time together begins to come to an end.

I love you Grandma.  I love you.

And I thank you so much for the life I’ve had.  I have been so blessed.

With my love,
Nanette

This has been quite a year month for us.  Boy, what a year month!  Aside from a party, anni­ver­sary, and gene­ral sum­mer hoo­pla, we had to up and buy a bran span­kin’ new refri­ge­ra­tor. Ouch.

Um…Hello, unex­pec­ted cost!!  Didn’t see you coming!

The day our fridge died was the hot­test of the year thus far.

107 degrees in the shade.

And 65 degrees in our freezer.

Not a good thing.

Our past year has been much like our past month, Unex­pec­ted:  To date we’ve:

Repla­ced:

oven/stove, parts of our hea­ter, our water hea­ter, part of our fence, found a crack in the pipe under our house that must get repai­red (not done yet), a big com­pu­ter issue (read, would no lon­ger turn on)

Paid and need to pay for:

a new master’s pro­gram, a new year of preschool, an upco­ming vaca­tion, and a myriad of other small unex­pec­ted expenses

Wor­ked through:

a torn shoul­der, a repai­red shoul­der, an almost vasec­tomy, an actual vasec­tomy, and most recently my grandma’s imma­nent death of ova­rian cancer.

Wow.  Just typing makes me want to curl up in the fetal posi­tion and suck my thumb.

I’m tired.  And when I get tired, I retreat.  When I retreat, I become a bad mom.  When I’m a bad mom, I get angry.  When I’m angry, I become a bad wife.  And when I’m a bad wife, I become tired all. over. again.

On Thurs­day our family lea­ves for our first cam­ping trip of the sum­mer.  And it couldn’t come at a bet­ter time.  I hope to use my time to refo­cus on the impor­tant pie­ces of my life, (read: family and friends) and not sweat the huge gla­ring, pen­ding CRAZINESS going on back an home small stuff.  I hope to remind myself this to shall pass and some day we’ll look back on these years fondly as we remem­ber how we relied on love burri­tos and cheap wine and not much more to raise our kids to the best of our ability.

Some­day when my Master’s pro­gram is done, I’m back to work full time, and am armed with more know­ledge and matu­rity, I’ll pro­bably see that I didn’t have to have heart pal­pi­ta­tions, weeks of anxiety, and slee­pless nights worry as much as I did.

But for now, I’m in need of a few good vaca­tions.  And a whole lotta margarita!

First up: Our second annual cam­ping trip with our good friends.

Second up:  BlogHer BABY!!  Hey Roo­mies!!  So excited!

Third up: My dad’s con­fe­rence. Where I not only hope to enjoy the pool, but also learn more about being a good leader.

Fourth up: An adult Carib­bean vaca­tion WITHOUT KIDS. peo­ple.  without kids.  (Thank you air miles and nice sti­mu­lus check!)

Fifth up:  More cam­ping with Hubby’s family.

Ya.  So like I said, I’m in need of a vaca­tion, or five.

Yes­ter­day I sat down to begin a really nice post about how much I love my hus­band on our 6^th anni­ver­sary. Somehow I never actually finished that post. So today I’ll leave you with the story of Hubby and my first “I love you” and when we knew that this rela­tionship was more than just a close friendship. I wrote the post one year ago.

This year has been filled with lots of cra­zi­ness inc­lu­ding, but not limi­ted to Hubby’s torn shoul­der, sur­gery, and seven months off of work. Ama­zingly enough, time was just the reset our family didn’t even know we needed.

Hubby was around our hum­ble abode way more (read: all day, every day) which pro­vi­ded him the time to redis­co­ver the impor­tance of savo­ring all the small moments. Both he and I have re-prioritized throughout this year, making family time more of a focus in our lives. To say that we have bene­fi­ted from this refo­cu­sing would be an unders­ta­te­ment. Today we are stron­ger than ever before.

Last year I couldn’t see how my hus­band shoul­der injury was going to bene­fit our family in any way. Now I I can see God had a big­ger plan for us.

Now for some pictures:

This is Hubby and BC’s first pro­ject together. They made wine barrels into gar­den pots.

A rare moment where eClaire actually chose Hubby over me. So sweet.

Christ­mas time just after “Santa” visi­ted. Eeks, this reminds me that we really need to take a more current pic­ture together.

Here’s the happy cou­ple, more in love today than ever before.