How is it possible well over another month has flown by? In the teaching world, April is a month full of testing and preparing for the last couple of months of school, so it’s a busy time. Then May comes and there’s all the last-minute things we want to do before the school year wraps up in June.
Spring is slowly making its way into North-west lower Michigan. Living in the snow-belt, we are used to getting snow well into spring and just had several inches a couple of weeks or so ago. Now we have lilacs blooming, flowers starting to blossom, green grass coming up, and green leaves finally popping out on the trees. The songbirds are returning from their migration, the apple trees are in blossom and we are starting to plant seeds indoors to prepare for our garden this summer. It’s a beautiful time of year, with warmer temperatures for the most part, but not really hot. I’ve shared some of the highlights below, and yes I say highlights because I take a lot of photos!
Be Still
The first picture on the slideshow should be a Baltimore Oriole. I took this photo along with many others while sitting in our backyard swing. I’d spent a couple of hours working hard in our backyard, getting our garden area and prepped and ready for the season and cleaning a few things up. I was tired and took a moment to rest in the swing. While I was sitting and relaxing, I heard a familiar sound.
With Spring Migration in full swing, I’ve learned to take my good camera out with me, which has a larger lens. I happened to have it sitting next to me when a special backyard visitor made its first appearance of the spring. Sitting still on the swing, I was able to get some great shots. The bird didn’t even seem to know I was there, and stayed for quite a while.
Sitting still is not often easy. In our busy world, we like to stay active, always doing something and completing tasks from day to day. Sometimes though the best thing we can do is to take a moment and stay still. Sometimes, the best views come in the moments when we cease striving and just let ourselves be still.
I’ve been trying to do this blog weekly, but I’m finding it may end up being less, probably every other week or even once a month. Sometimes there just isn’t much to share, and I’m busy doing other blogs and writing as well.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve had several sunny days and beautiful blue skies. We’ve also had rain, ice and more snow. The weather seems to be stuck in a pattern with a warm-up and lots of melting, followed by ice, snow, and then the melting returns with another warm-up. As I write this, we are in the middle of a warning for up to 2 feet of snow by later this week. A couple of days ago, most of it had melted and it was 40 degrees outside.
Physical and Occupational Therapy
If you’ve followed this blog for awhile, you’ll know I used to give regular PT and OT updates since we were in an auto accident in 2020, but as I’ve improved, I don’t share updates as often. Although I haven’t been in outpatient PT or OT for a while now, I still try to do the exercises regularly. One side is weaker than the other, and the exercises help build strength and regain my balance. I hit a milestone recently, when I was finally able to bend over to put my hands flat on the floor again. Before the accident, I could do this with my legs together and straight. Now, I had to do it with my legs spread apart a little, but I was still able to do it. I may never fully regain 100% of where I was before, but I am still determined to regain as much as I can.
My wrists still get irritated with a lot of use, especially the left one. The break on that side was a lot worse than the other. I’ve learned to go in spurts, taking frequent breaks to relieve any pain and tension that builds up.
Mindset Is Everything
Sometimes life gets hard. We go through things that don’t always make sense. Life has so many struggles, so many ups and downs. We can’t always control what happens to us. But we can choose what we focus on. Our mindset has such a huge impact on what we face.
The past few years have not been easy for us. Sometimes it seems like a rollercoaster, as though there’s a rough ride up, a thrilling ride down, and then twists and turns that leave you wondering what could possibly be around the next bend. It’s not always easy to see the positive, or find joy when live goes around the crazy turns.
But mindset is everything. As a Christian, I often find myself drawn back to the scripture, and verses like Colossians 3:2, Isaiah 43:18, 2 Corinthians 4:16, and John 14:1. It’s easy to let myself get stuck on what has happened around me and worry about what will happen next. It’s much harder to walk in faith, knowing that eventually all of this will work together for our good.
This winter has been odd. We live in the snow belt and normally get a lot of snow. We’ve had lots, but it melts quickly, then we get ice, then more snow on top of that. It’s been a long winter. It used to be one of my favorite seasons, but since the accident, it’s been hard to find joy in winter.
And yet… mindset is everything. I’ve been trying to focus on the positive, to find beauty even in a very long, strange winter. I haven’t been disappointed. When I started shifting my mindset from “this winter is awful” to “there is beauty in this winter,” I started finding it all around me. I think the photos I’ve taken the past few weeks can say more than words could.
Winter finally returned this week! Mid-week, another winter storm moved in, dumping several inches on us. Today, we ended up with a drizzly, icy rain that left a coating of ice on the vehicle. We enjoyed lots of time indoors with the dogs this week, and managed to get outside a little bit too.
Our basset hound is obsessed with a YouTube channel called Chicken City. She prefers it to be on the televsion all day long, and will often whine and bark if it is not. She also still loves to play with stuffed animals. For Christmas, my Mom got her a stuffed animal; her very own chicken! It was one of the best gifts she could have gotten, and she has been enjoying it since we opened it this weekend.
Time With Family
Between the blizzard on Christmas Eve, and illness, we didn’t get to spend Christmas with either side of the family. This week, we celebrated with some of Ben’s family early in the week and part of my family later in the week. I spent time with my mom, sister, a niece and nephew at a sporting event, and we exchanged Christmas gifts. It’s odd doing Christmas almost a month later, but since the accident, and with Ben’s health declining, we’ve needed to adjust our expectations and plans in so many different ways.
It was great to see family, and I enjoyed a nice drive. In north-west lower Michigan where we live, it’s often a drive to get anywhere. The weather was great though, and the drive took me through a lot of countryside with limited traffic, which was really nice. I spotted a couple of new species to add to my bird list for this year, bringing the total number of species to 16, and I was able to pick up a few groceries at Meijer on my way back. This may not seem like a big deal, but where we are at, stores like Meijer and Walmart are a bit of a drive, so we plan our trips carefully.
Books I’m Reading:
I haven’t shared book ideas in a while. Here are three books I am either currently reading or have recently read:
Atomic Habits by James Clear
Dear Writer, You Need to Quit, by Becca Syme
When We Were Young, by Karen Kingsbury.
One thing I’ve noted in the past that I’ll mention again now is that different people like different books. I recommend books I am enjoying, but may still be reading some of them. It is always possible I may miss something inappropriate or may not have read a section yet that is inappropriate. Also, things I don’t have a problem with, others may find offensive and vice versa. While I am enjoying and recommend these books, please use your own discretion when picking out books to read.
So often, life seems to be able up of all the big things that happen to us. Deaths, marriages, babies born, graduations, new jobs, big moves, and so many other things that we encounter. And yet, in the day-to-day of lives there are so many amazing things that happen every day and we often pass them right by.
One of the things I will always remember about Morgan is how she focused on the ordinary, but made it seem extraordinary. In memory of her, my dad created a video on Facebook. I hope the link will work. https://www.facebook.com/100000178873722/videos/842670623469457/ In the video, you can see the photography that Morgan took, how it focused on not only the big picture, but also the little things like a butterfly on a flower, raindrops on a daisy or leaf, waves rolling up on a beach, or pinecones hanging from a tree.
Life isn’t just about the big events. The little things matter too. The way the sun slowly rises in the morning or sets in the evening, the way the rain falls softly on a windshield, or the way whipped cream slowly melts in a cup of hot cocoa; it’s these little moments that I think we’ll remember the most in the end. Sure, we’ll remember the weddings, funerals, births, graduations, and other major events. But I’ve found they often don’t stand out as much day to day as the little moments do.
The little things matter. They really do. Whether it’s finding time to read a book, or soak in some fresh air, feel the rain upon your face or feel like water between your fingers as you glide across a lake in a canoe, it’s those moments that make up every day. Often, we pass those moments by because they seem so ordinary, and yet, when we really stop to look at them, they often become extraordinary. Like an amazing sunrise we stop to admire, or a mother duck slowly gliding across a lake with her babies, like the way ice cream is so satisfying on a hot summer day, and how green grass feels against the toes when you’ve had nothing but snow for so long. Those are the moments we need to hold on to, to treasure. Sure, the big moments are important too, and we need to remember them as well, but it’s the little moments that make up our lives.
You know how in movies and books, sometimes you get the line that says something like “6 months later,” or “3 years later?” Sometimes that’s how life feels. It’s like yesterday, we were dealing with the loss of our grandparents, other family members and friends, and some major life changes, and then the screen went black and the words “Fifteen years later” popped up.
Fifteen Years. How is that even possible? Life moves forward whether we want it to or not. Fifteen years ago seems like yesterday and yet a lifetime ago all at the same time.
If you’ve followed this blog for long, or if you’ve been friends with me on Facebook, you’ve heard the story of my sister-in-law, Morgan. Morgan passed away 15 years ago today after a battle with cancer. You can find the links to previous posts below.
If you knew Morgan, she had a way of drawing people in. The outcasts, those who didn’t fit in with others. She made them belong. Her faith was so strong. She knew where she was going, but that wasn’t enough. In her life, she shared her faith with others, and even in her death, her story reaches others.
Physical and Occupational Therapy: This week, I was able to get up to 2 miles in about eleven minutes on the indoor bike. To my athlete friends, this may not seem like much, but it was a new record for me since the accident and something to celebrate. I haven’t added more weight since last…
Even in great loss, there is hope. Even in death, we have hope that we will see them again in Heaven. If there is anything I’ve learned in life, it’s that winter doesn’t last forever, and in even in the darkest of winters, there is beauty. #collateralbeauty
You can also see just a small glimpse of who Morgan was here:
My family went through a lot before losing Morgan, and then we’ve been through a lot since then. I think sometimes God allows things to come in waves, because if it came all at once, we couldn’t survive it. It would just be too much to bear. So much sorrow, so much loss, and so many changes.
And yet. Yet there is hope, joy, peace. We aren’t victims of awful situations, we are survivors, fighters, warriors. I remember Morgan not because I can’t let go of the past, but because she will always be a part of my life. Her life helped shape my own. Fifteen years later, I can look back and say time has changed us, all of us, myself included. We’ve grown older, learn to live a new normal, and grown stronger. I can say I am a better person for what I’ve been through. More understanding, stronger.
If there’s anything I’ve learned over the past 15 years, it’s that even great sorrow, there is joy. Even in suffering, there is peace and hope. God has a plan in all of this. We are all part of a much larger story.
Today we remember, and it hurts. But there is also hope, joy and peace. 15 years ago wasn’t a goodbye. It was just “see you later.” As Romans Chapter 8 talks about, what we have faced these past couple of decades is nothing in comparison to what is coming. God is working all of the circumstances, from the accident, to the troubles we’ve faced, the losses we’ve had, and yes, even the loss of Morgan, for our good.
As a Christian, I have faith that I will see Morgan again, as well as my grandparents and others who have gone before me. Every day, we get a little closer to that day. Fifteen years have come and gone so very quickly, and I imagine another fifteen will go by just as quickly. Life is too short to dwell on what was.
Fifteen years ago, life changed. Sometimes it feels like we woke up, and suddenly things had fast forwarded 15 years. Other times, it feels like this all happened last night. Fifteen years is so small in comparison with eternity. One day, we will live happily ever after. And until that day, it’s not goodbye. It’s “See you in the morning.”
We’ve had a beautiful week here in North-west lower Michigan, finally getting some sunshine. Michigan isn’t known for its sunny days, especially in winter and this winter has been very cloudy. I’ve seen some reports saying we haven’t had a full day of sun since November, and it’s been weeks since we’ve really seen the sun at all. This week, the sun came out for several days. We enjoyed walks outside, and a beautiful stary night in January.
It felt strange to be able to walk around outside in January. We often have several feet of snow this time of year, so having bare ground and not needing snowshoes to get around feels odd. It was really nice to be able to spend so much time outside this week though, without worrying about a lot of snow gear, or getting worn out quickly in the deep snow. I don’t know what lies ahead. We will likely get a lot more snow and cold temperatures in the days ahead, and probably a lot of cloudy days too. But eventually, the sun will shine again. There is beauty even in cloudy days, and they will not last forever. The sunshine this week was just what we needed to start off the New Year! A photo dump from this week:
Catalyst:
We originally started this blog back in 2012, transferring from another site to WordPress from another blog I’d started to share our adventures in north-west lower Michigan. For a couple of years, I posted occasionally, and then posts became even rarer as I started working on my first Master’s degree. For a brief time, I started posting again but it wasn’t much at all.
Then, in December of 2020, the accident happened. If you are just now starting to follow this blog, you can read about that here: A Christmas To Remember. It changed everything.
A catalyst is defined as “an agent that provokes or speeds significant change or action (Merriam-Webster.com., 2023).
The accident was a catalyst to so many things in our lives, including writing more on this blog. At first, it started as a way for us to update people all at once. Then, slowly, it has started becoming what it was originally meant to be to begin with; a way to share our lives with others and keep track of life. A journal in a sense.
For years, Ben and I had discussed the possibility of me working remotely from home, especially as his health deteriorated. After the accident, that became more of a necessity and a possibility than it ever had before. With Grad school between 2013 and 2020, with only a year break between 2 Masters degrees, there were so many things I stopped doing and had to give up because Grad school and working full time came first.
When the accident happened, I was still trying to figure out how to get so many of those things back, like my writing time, birdwatching, playing piano and guitar, crafting, gardening, and doing so many of the other things I like to do. The accident forced us to rethink things. I’ve always been away of just how short life is, but the accident made me even more aware of it, and left me wanting to do so much more before my time on this earth is done. I was already writing a fair amount, but I wanted to write even more. I was barely going out birdwatching, taking photos, or doing crafts because we just never made the time for it.
The accident, in so many ways, became the catalyst to getting my life back. Not only in the physical sense, but getting back to what truly matters. Slowing down. Taking time to sit out in the sun and read a book, hike through a forest in the middle of winter, and jam a tune on the piano. Taking the time to put together a craft, or play with the dog, blog, or try new things I’ve been wanting to learn. It isn’t that I wasn’t doing those things at all before the accident, but I wasn’t doing them much. The accident made both my husband Ben and I aware of what we were actually taking for granted without even realizing it, and what we needed to change to get to where we wanted to be.
So, we started making those changes. I now work from home. I’m blogging this year more than I have in a long time, and I’m writing pretty close to daily. I’m reading books faster than I have in years and taking the time to enjoy the sunshine on my face, and the cold air in my lungs. Life is too short not to.
When temperatures and system pressure change, they become a catalyst to the weather. Clouds move in or get pushed out, either covering the sun, or making room for it to reappear. Just like the weather, pressure and changes in our own lives, whether negative or positive, lead to change. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad. But eventually, long enough into the seasons, the sun makes it way out from behind the clouds again. Difficult days don’t last forever. And sometimes, they become the catalyst that leads us towards days better than anything we could ever imagine.
As we enter this new season in our lives, where life has slowly returned to “normal,” and yet will never be “normal” again, we begin to find a “new normal.” We are slowly building new routines and finding ways to enjoy the little moments in life, even as different as things are now.
Physical and Occupational Therapy
I’m still trying to do some physical and occupational therapy exercises. In many ways, this is now combined with what would have just been exercise before, but I still struggle with balance some and weakness on my left side. This may always be the case. I can do most of the things I used to do before the accident, I just have to be careful I don’t fall. I also have a hard time still getting up and down off a floor and cannot turn my wrist all the way over, but I’m learning to function as it is. In future posts, I will still update on PT and OT occasionally, but since there is not a lot new each week to update, I will not talk about it every time.
Update on Ben
If you follow us on Social Media, some people questioned one of the photos I shared as a year-end wrap-up, as Facebook doesn’t always show posts exactly as they are shared. The photo was this one, taken just before Ben went in for Cataract surgery in July, and I think some people thought Ben was in the hospital currently. He is not, as this was just a day surgery, but his peripheral neuropathy continues to progress.
If you’ve followed my previous posts, you’ll know that Ben has peripheral neuropathy, with no known cause. He likely has a rare autoimmune disorder, but after many different tests for what it could be, there has been no clear direction or definite results. Ben met with the University of Michigan hospital this week. We found out his previous doctor has passed away and he has a new doctor. The latest doctor is recommending Ben not get a nerve biopsy at this time, as the risks outweigh the benefits right now, and it would likely not give us any results. He is placing Ben on a new medication to try out. Winters are rough for both of us, with increased pain levels.
A Michigan Big Year
One of my goals for this coming year is to do a Michigan Big Year. I hope to see as many birds as I can in the state of Michigan during 2023, with a minimum goal of 10 birds per month, 120 birds total. You can follow those adventures on the Northern Michigan Birding blog. https://northernmichiganbirding.wordpress.com/
Happy Birthday!
This week, we celebrated our basset hound turning a year old. It’s hard to believe she’s already a year old! She’s grown so much and added so much joy and laughter into our lives.
A Hint of What is to Come?
Living in north-west lower Michigan, we seldom see the sunshine in the winter time. Sometimes winter can feel like it drags on forever, with the first snow often falling by October and the last snow sticking around until June many years. But like so many things in life, winter will not last forever. Today, even with the super cloudy skies we’ve had, we saw a hint of blue skies, and hopefully a hint of what is yet to come. We will see the sun again. Just as in life, when seasons are tough and dark, they won’t last forever. One day, perhaps not even all that far away, the sun will peak through the clouds and slowly make its way back around. The earth will warm again, things will begin to grow and change. But for now, everything rests. It prepares itself for what is yet to come, even if what is yet to come seems better than what is now. Winter is not forever, but it is a time to rest and prepare for what may lie ahead.
We may face many trials and difficult times, but it is not the end. It is only a season. This is our winter, our season to rest and prepare for what comes next. As we find ourselves slowly moving out of that season, we look with anticipation and longing for what is yet to come. Winter will not keep its hold forever. One day, we will see sunshine and feel its warmth again. And until that day, we keep on waiting and preparing for whatever that will be.
Every year, I set goals for myself. I used to do this on social media, but in recent years, the settings have changed, so I’ve switched to a blog format over the past couple of years. You can find my goals from 2020 going into 2021 here: 2020 Goals, and my goals from 2021, going into 2022 here: 2021 Goals.
Why do I set goals? Because I believe setting goals helps us to make a plan and follow it to get to where we want to be. Do I always stick with the plan 100%? No. Life gets in the way, and things happen, but I strive to make progress on my goals throughout the year as much as possible. Sometimes I’m more successful at it than other times. I often set my goals around projects. Projects are anything that takes time and energy, and in order to complete those projects in a timely manner, I need a plan. Setting goals around those projects help me to make a plan to get things done.
My goals for 2022 were as follows, along with how I did on each goal.
By December 31, 2022, I will write a book, edit it, send it to beta readers, and seek out getting it published. In many ways, this goal was too much for one year with everything else going on. I did manage to write quite a bit, (over 100,000 words) and did some editing too. A couple of years ago, 100,000 wouldn’t have felt like much, but since the accident, it’s more than I could have done a year ago, so I’ll take it.
By December 31, 2022, I will make time to enjoy a variety of my hobbies each week, including in music, reading, photography, birdwatching, arts and crafts, and writing. I continue to work on this. Next year, one of my goals is going to be around building habits in addition to a hobbies goal. I enjoyed more hobbies than I have in a long time, setup my piano once again with my music books, read more fiction books than I’ve read in years, took a lot of photos, and managed to get a little bit of arts and crafts in. I did a little bit of birdwatching, but not a lot.
By December 31, 2022, I will gain strength and become more physically fit. I did well on this goal until winter hit. For most of 2022, I was outside several days a week hiking, playing tennis, frisbee golf, or heading inside to the gym. Once winter hit, it has been harder to get out. I’m sort of keeping this goal for next year but working into habits instead of a separate goal.
By December 31, 2022, I will complete tasks around the house following weekly, monthly, and yearly checklists. We got a lot of tasks done around this house this year! There is still more I want to do, but we moved my hobby room and converted it into an office, started a new space for the hobby room, then decided to change that up as well. So next year, that will be one of our goals.
By December 31, 2022, I will create and carry out goals related to work, including teaching, blogging and photography. This was the toughest goal to write, but perhaps one of the easiest to carry out because it was so broad. I’ve blogged sporadically throughout the year but want to get more consistent at it. I started a new teaching job, teaching online and explored some new projects. I’m sure I’ll go into more detail as time goes on, but for now, I’m not talking a lot about those projects since they are just getting started.
Goals for next year (2023):
One thing I learned during 2022 by tracking my goals so closely is that I really can only do about 3-4 goals per month. As such, I will have five goals this coming year, but every month, one of those goals will not be focused on. I even made out a list for myself of what to focus on when! 😉 I’ve added a sample below, for anyone interested in trying something similar. My personal one is colored coded, but the one below is much simpler. There is one goal, building routines, that I will work on all year because it is important to keep the momentum when you are trying to build new habits.
Project 1
Project 2
Project 3
Project 4
Project 5
January
x
February
x
March
x
April
x
May
x
June
x
July
x
August
x
September
x
October
x
November
x
December
x
My goals for 2023:
1.Writing.
Isn’t this a goal every year? 😄 By December 31, 2023, I will have organized my series more and finished up some of the books in it. I am finding that having a book ready to send out to publishing is difficult when you are writing a series that constantly changes the first book. This year, I tried to make myself just write the first book and get it out, but I quickly discovered it was a really fast way to dislike and dread my own writing. I backtracked, wrote about half of one of the later books in the series, and about 1/4 of another one. It’s a rather large series, and I’ve been looking at some ideas to help me write the first part of the series without trying to force it.
2. Birdwatch
By December 31,2023, I will have spotted and photographed at least 120 different birds (average of 10 new birds per month) and completed my own Michigan Big Year. I love birdwatching. One of my goals for this coming year is to spot and photograph as many different species of birds as I can.
3. Habits:
By December 31,2023, I will build routines around the areas of music (piano/guitar), hobbies, chores and fitness. I did this last year with reading and have read more fiction books than I have in a long time. I read the book Atomic Habits by James Clear last year and found it to be very informative and helpful. I want to learn to play more piano and guitar, build in my hobbies as part of my regular routine, create a better routine for household chores, and build habits to help me maintain fitness goals year-round. Some of these will likely be goals that carry over into next year, but I want to start building the routines for them now. I will start with building one routine, and then slowly add more in.
4.Blog Regularly:
By December 31,2023, I will blog regularly, based on a schedule I create. I’ve always enjoyed blogging, but do not keep it up as much as I would like to. I am setting a goal for myself to create a schedule for blogging, and stick with the schedule as much as I possibly can.
5. Learning
By December 31, 2023, I learn new skills, such as HTML programming, natural dyes, herb growing, and other skills that come up throughout the year. As a life-long learner, I enjoy learning new things but struggle to set aside the time to focus on continuing to build my skills. By making learning a priority this year, I am setting aside time to build the skills I want to and to use those skills in my hobbies and every day life.
6. Other:
Career Goals. This is part of the reason I’m limiting myself to 3-4 projects a month. The 3-4 projects are from the personal goals listed above, but this still leaves time for Career Goals. Part of the reason I wasn’t reaching the 5 project a month goals is because I wasn’t really tracking much for career goals, at least not in the same way I track personal goals. So I was doing a lot in my career, which takes time and energy, but not counting it with the projects I completed. This made is seem like I was doing less than I was actually doing. This year, I’m cutting back on how many personal goals I expect to meet each month (3-4) but will continue to work on career goals outside of my personal goals. It is much more realistic than trying to meet both career and personal goals while only noting the time for personal goals in my schedule.
Two great reads for building habits, creating routine and finishing projects are:
Start Finishing, by Charlie Gilkey
Atomic Habits, by James Clear
As we wrap up 2022 and head into a New Year, I look forward to seeing where life takes us next. If nothing else, life is an adventure and sometimes it feels like the twists and turns will never stop. I’ve made a plan for next year, but I can guarantee nothing will go 100% as planned out. That’s just part of living. I’ll reevaluate throughout the year, adjust the plan as needed and keep moving forward. In the end, I think that’s what really matters, that we keep going and don’t give up. I may not reach 100% of my goals, but I will know I did the best I could to get there, and changed directions when needed.
You know in books, or movies when they fast forward in time and have a little line that says “Six months later,” or “1 year older?” That’s almost how it feels now, as though we’ve fast forwarded past the accident. Sure, there are lasting effects, there always will be, but we’ve moved into a season, and with that, new adventures. Time moves on, no matter how much we want it to slow down.
Two years. As I type this, it’s just a few hours away from being 2 years since the accident. As you read this, it already has been two years. I’m starting this post the day before to give myself time to write it. Most of the time, I’m ok. Life has slowly returned to “normal” or at least as close to normal as it will get for us, whatever normal is anyways. And then I have moments when it hits me about what’s happened, what we’ve been through, and I need a little time to regroup and pull myself back together and move forward. But I think that’s all just a part of the process.
Last year, I wrote about the Adventure. You can find that post here, along with a link where I talk about the accident and what happened:
——————————————–What Would Life Be Without Adventure?———————————————
It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since that horrific day. It’s a day we will remember for the rest of our lives. We set out on an everyday common adventure. A trip to the store, a trip for Christmas items. It was something we’d done many times before and since. But that day…
———————————————————————————————————————————————-
Sometimes I look at photos of the accident, or photos I took of myself in the hospital, and it feels almost surreal. There were moments when I wondered how I would ever survive, how I pulled through despite everything that happened. But there is a plan and purpose that we don’t always understand.
And now, here we are. Two years later. This year, we wrapped up one season of our lives and moved on to the next. Like any good story though, what happened in previous seasons will always stay with us and sometimes, it may even come back around. This year, I continued recovering from a major accident, returned to teaching and landed a new position that I love ,which allows me to work from home, and we got a new puppy. I completed NaNoWriMo again this year, and wrote quite a bit, all things considered, in a book series I’m working on. On the downside, Ben’s health continued to get worse , he had cataract surgery, and my dad ended up in the hospital for over a week due to an infection. It’s been another roller coaster year. Sometimes it feels like every year is.
We are in a story far greater than anything we could have ever written ourselves. Like every great story, there are ups and downs, there is danger and adventure. Two years ago today our lives changed, in a few seconds time. Nothing will ever really be the same again, but how can it be? We are not the same. Like any well-written story, our lives are no different. We grow. We change. Through the trials , when we keep on keeping on, we become better and stronger, more of who we were meant to be. The 2022 season of our lives wasn’t an easy one, but I’m sure life never really gets easier. We get stronger. We learn how to cope, how to deal better with what’s thrown at us. I know for me at least, my faith has grown stronger as well. I’m not who I was 2 years ago. I will never be that person again. And that’s ok. Somehow I think that’s how it’s meant to be.
Two years ago, we started off on an adventure that should have been happy and fun. It quickly became dangerous, painful and tough. Yet through all of it, we clung to our faith in God and to the promise that there will be a better tomorrow, even if it’s not this side of Heaven. Along this journey, we’ve found we are never alone, and that sometimes what happens to us isn’t about just us. I’ve had people tell me they don’t understand me. They don’t understand how I can still rejoice and be so joyful when so much has happened, so much has been lost. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, and I do have tough days, sometimes really tough days, but I try to keep my eyes focused on what lies beyond this life, not just the here and now. That’s what matters most in the end.
As 2022 comes to close, I look back on the past 2 years and try to give myself a moment to realize how far I’ve come, and how much we’ve been through. But I don’t stay there. For there is much to look forward to in the future, and work that still needs to be done. Sometime in the next couple of weeks, I’ll do a post on goals for the coming year, and what we’re focusing on next. I’ll leave you with some photos from 2020, quotes and scripture that have come to mean a lot to me, and photos from this past year. And with that, the 2022 Season comes to an end….
It’s crazy how time flies. I keep meaning to write more on the blog, to do another post, and the days just get away from me. It’s not that I’m not doing any writing. I wrote over 50,000 words in November in my series. It’s just that I’m doing other writing and don’t get to any of the blogs I do. I hope to work in blogging again as a habit, so I do it on a regular basis more.
Occupational/Physical Therapy:
OT and PT still consists of what I do on my own. As winter sets in, it has become harder to do a lot of walking or to go out for hikes. Instead, most of my physical activity consists of using our small indoor trampoline, doing chores around the house, using a balance board and stretch bands, and just trying to move as much as I possibly can. We do have a gym membership, but once summer came, I was outdoors so much I barely used it, and getting there in the wintertime can be challenging with the road conditions.
My pain level still varies by day and by the changes in the weather. The cold is rough, having had so many broken bones and some nerve damage. I try to find ways to adapt to it, and bundle up when I need to go out so the pain isn’t so intense, but sometimes there is just no way around it. Sometimes I avoid outside all together if I can, which is one of the perks of working from home now. Sometimes I have to go out , or really want to, and we use hand warmers to help counter the pain. I love the outdoors, so staying inside all winter is difficult, so we try to find a balance between just staying indoors and finding ways to keep the pain at bay outside.
Ben’s Health:
Ben’s neuropathy continues to progress, with no known cause. Almost two years later, we are still waiting on the nerve biopsy that was supposed to happen a few days after the accident occurred. Some days it feels like we are no further closer to answers than we were a few years ago. For now, we just keep on searching for answers and trusting God that there is a plan and a purpose in all of this.
Where did autumn go?
It seems like just yesterday it was the first day of fall. Now, here we are in December, and I haven’t posted anything on this blog since September. Time goes by too quickly. Since my last post, I’ve enjoyed many outdoor trips, including hikes, outdoor tennis, and frisbee golf. Ben and I celebrated 11 years of marriage. Annie enjoyed the first real snowfall of the season, and I successfully made a hike down a steep hill. We’ve enjoyed sunrises, sunsets, and the beauty that Autumm brings all around us.
I’m going to wrap this post up here. It’s almost that time of year when I review goals again, so there should be another post coming very soon. Among my goals for the coming year is to get back into blogging regularly and making a plan to do so. Hopefully I will be posting more into the coming new year.
The summer has flown by. We are now almost to the end September, and I haven’t posted in quite awhile. I keep meaning to. Many times, I’ve sat down to do a blog post and then been caught up in something else like my other writing projects, or a Facebook page I run, and the next thing I know, there’s just no time left to write in this blog. I’ve even started writing this post, and then come back to it two weeks later.
It’s been a busy summer for Ben and I. I will share some photos, but it’s been so long since I posted last, I could overload the page if I’m not careful. Life has slowly been returning to “normal” and yet it will never be normal again. I guess perhaps it is more of a new normal. I started a new job, teaching from home online, while Ben’s neuropathy continues to get worse. Annie keeps growing and changing as she gets closer to being an adult dog, and our other two dogs have reached their senior years. Summer has felt like a whirlwind.
Physical/Occupational Therapy:
I’ve continued the physical and occupational therapy exercises throughout summer, but haven’t made it out to the gym as much as I wanted to. In the month of August, our puppy and I walked at least a mile every day. I’ve also continued to try to lift heavier things and build back my strength, as well as to do the physical therapy exercises I was taught to. It’s slowly paid off. A couple of weeks ago, I was finally able to lift a 50llb bag of rabbit food into a vehicle by myself. That may not seem like a big deal, but when you’ve lost as much strength as I had, it is.
I have good days and bad days as far as pain goes. When the weather changes, the pain often gets worse. I also had pain loading up the rabbit food in my left wrist, but that may be a life-long thing because of the damage. I tolerate it pretty well most of the time. My left leg continues to get stronger, and I can now lift it pretty high most days. When it rains, sometimes this all goes away and Ben will help me get into bed because it stiffens, and lifting it becomes very difficult. I am hoping that as it gets stronger, this will change. The quad muscle was damaged so much, along with nerves, and it is still weaker than on the right side, but I’m slowly getting it back. I also still have abdominal pain, although that’s gotten significantly better since last year’s surgery. I can always tell when I overdo it though, as the muscles in my core will start to protest.
Ben’s Health:
The peripheral neuropathy that Ben has continues to spread. He is losing more feeling in his fingers and hands, as well as developing the same nerve pain that he has in his feet. We are hoping a nerve biopsy will be scheduled soon to try to determine what is causing it. He had cataract surgery in July, which has made a big difference in his vision. He was able to do the Farmer’s Market for most of the summer, but fall has been rough so far.
Summer Flew By!
Summer went by so fast! As I write this, fall has officially arrived. The leaves are changing, birds are migrating, and the nights are getting cooler. We’ve had a lot of rainy weather the last couple of days, and even turned on the furnace briefly.
We’ve enjoyed lots of blooms, especially from our native plants. I went to the rodeo with one of our nieces and one of our nephews. We got to meet a couple of authors at the AuSable Canoe Marathon, and enjoyed time outside. I’ll share a few photos below. Summer went by too fast, but I’ve always enjoyed the different seasons and am looking forward to the cooler weather and more rainy days. I’m counting the days until the first snowfall, as I always enjoy watching it come down. And yes, here in north-west lower Michigan, we often get snow in the fall.
Songs on Repeat:
Do It Again- Elevation Worship
It’s Going Down- KJ-52
I’ll Find You-Lecrae
If You Want Love- NF
Scripture and Quotes:
Now that I have returned to teaching, and summer is winding down, I hope to get back into blogging again on a regular basis. Until next time,
Sometimes it feels like time just flies by, and before you know it, it’s been over two months since I last posted anything. Time goes by too fast. We’ve been busy, and we’ve had a lot going on. This will be a longer than normal blog post, I suspect.
I’m not even really sure where to begin. I’ve started this blog post over and over again, but life gets in the way, and I haven’t published anything until now.
Physical/Occupational Therapy/ Medical Updates For Me (Cindy)
I’ve continued the PT and OT exercises I learned during my time in rehab. Sometimes it’s meant going to the gym to do them, other times going for a hike or trying to do everyday activities such as gardening and laundry. We’ve had a lot of medical appointments over the past couple of months too.
I’m not even sure how much I’ve mentioned it to anyone, but during the scans completed after the accident, the doctors found white spots on my brain. After waiting to get into a neurologist, and further testing, it is believed the spots were caused by a stroke many years ago, possibly even as an infant. So I’ve had more tests to confirm this, as well as to assess my risk for another stroke. I meet with the neurologist again in July and will hopefully know more then. So far, everything is looking pretty good, and we are hoping it will stay that way. But life has a way of throwing you a curve, so at the same time, we’re bracing ourselves for that possibility too.
Physically, I’m doing better and better each week. I’m able to move more, I’m not as sore as I was, and I’m gaining strength back. I still have days when I’m pretty weak on the left side, and I’ve been having a lot of nerve pain as things reconnect but am making good progress. Being on my feet for very long is painful, walking hurts if I walk for more than 15-20 minutes at a time, and my left wrist sometimes locks which is painful. I still have to be careful with all of the internal damage and nerve damage from the trauma. I may never regain full function of my left wrist, or the feeling in my left thigh, but I’ve come a long way. Most people would never know I was in a serious auto accident.
Ben’s Health Update:
Ben’s peripheral neuropathy continues to get worse. It is spreading into his hands and fingers, making it harder for him to grip things and open jars. The nerve pain, especially in his feet and legs, gets pretty intense at times. Basically, the nerves in his limbs are dying, but are going haywire in the meantime. So he doesn’t always feel when he steps on something, or grabs something sharp, but other times he gets super sharp nerve pain when he’s not doing anything at all.
We also recently found out he has a cataract. This is unusual for someone his age, and the doctors are not sure why he’s developed one, but his vision is pretty bad right now. He will be having surgery next month to repair it. It may be yet another symptom of whatever is going on with his body. We continue to pray for answers and seek out doctors who can help. We’ve tried a lot of things over the years, including natural remedies and elimination diets, but nothing has helped so far. In fact, some of the things have made it worse. We trust in all of this though that God has a plan beyond what we can understand.
Bring on Summer!
Summer is such a busy time of year for us. With a little help, I was able to get a garden in this year using buckets for containers and a couple of patches on the ground. I can’t wait to see what comes in for harvest this year!
I’ve started driving a little more again. I was driving again last summer, but after surgery in November, wasn’t able to for a while. As the warmer weather arrived and my body had time to recover more from the November surgery and infection in February, I was able to start driving again. It’s felt really good to get out and enjoy nature! I’ve been trying to stop between appointments to lakes and nature places, and on the rare day off, we intentionally schedule time to go too.
A few photos from the outdoor places and our garden:
Our puppy Annie is getting so big! She loves the outdoors and makes us laugh every day. We also had three baby rabbits born this summer, and introduced them to her. She LOVES the rabbits just as much as our older two dogs. A few photos of her adventures with us:
Songs on Repeat:
One Year Ago-KJ52
The Blessing- Kari Jobe and Cody Carnes
Goodness of God-Bethel Music
I’m Sorry- TobyMac
Give Me Your Eyes- Brandon Heath
Scripture and Quotes
Every Season Serves a Purpose
Life is full of ups and downs. For us, the past few years especially have been full of challenges and difficult times. Yet as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, there is joy even in the midst of the trials. We don’t know where this road is headed next. We don’t know where we’ll be a year from now, or if we’ll have any more answers than we do now.
What we do know is that there is a God in Heaven who has been with us every step of the way, and continues to be even now. What we do know is that He’s given us each other, and even when the road seems long and difficult, there is a plan and purpose beyond what we can comprehend. Every season serves a purpose.
This season we are in may seem long and sometimes never ending, but in the end, it is only a season. It will pass, like all the others before it. To quote Psalm 27:13:
“I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”
Psalm 27:13, NRSV
Times may be tough, the season may be rough, but God is still good, and there is a plan and a purpose even for a season such as this.
It’s been over a month since I posted last. I feel like that’s kind of become routine. I’m hoping to build a better routine for blogging, but it seems like every time I start to build one, something else happens and it throws everything off.
Since I blogged last, I’ve been trying to get to the gym for physical therapy exercises and have done them at home quite a bit too. We ended up with a couple of ice storms this past month, both on days I had scheduled time open to go to the gym, so we’ve gone a little less than I would like to, but the weather should be getting warmer sooner. At home, we have a trampoline, balance board, balance ball, dumbbell weights, an exercise ball, mat, stretch bands, and a few other things so it’s better than nothing, but I prefer the gym. What we have still allows me to get in some physical therapy though. As the snow clears, I’ve been able to get out for walks more too. It’s felt so good to get out!
I still have some soreness from the November surgery, but it is slowly getting better. The infection I had in February seems to have healed up nicely, and we are watching closely in case anything tries to come back anytime soon.
As far as occupational therapy, I keep doing things around the house as much as I can to work my wrists and hands. Annie, our new puppy, helps a lot with that too. She loves to play tug of war and gets my wrist moving in a lot of different ways. We started seeing a new chiropractor as well, someone closer to where we live. She specializes in sports medicine and does physical therapy in addition to chiropractic. I’m noticing more movement in my wrist and less pain in the hip, so hopefully we will continue to see improvement.
Puppy Fun
Annie is getting so big! We are enjoying every moment with her. She LOVES being outside with me, and loves to play with Ben, myself, and our other two dogs. Her favorite toys are pull-ropes and stuffed animals. So far, she hasn’t been very destructive with toys though. She just plays with them and moves on to the next one. We are very thankful to have her in our lives! We’ve been tracking her growth week to week, and I’ve included some photos.
Songs on Repeat
KJ-52- One Year Ago
Grits-My Life Be Like
Start Over- Flame featuring NF
Scripture and Quotes:
Aslan Is On The Move
“Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight, At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more. When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death, and when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.”
C.S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia
The Chronicles of Narnia has been one of my favorite series since I was a child. I shared a couple of quotes above, and I think about them often, especially this time of year.
Living in the snowbelt of Northern Lower Michigan, it’s not uncommon for us to have snow until at least May, or even into June. Some of the “old timers” who have lived in the area a long time, will tell you they’ve seen snow pretty much every month of the year. So by the time we get to this part of the year, we are all ready for spring to come, yet it seems so far off.
I think often of Narnia. If you’ve never read the series, there is a witch who makes it always winter but never Christmas, and spring never comes. When the lion in the story, Aslan, begins to move, winter can no longer take its hold. It has to leave. The lion is more powerful than the witch.
For Ben and I, the last few years especially have sometimes felt like an endless winter. Sometimes it seems like difficult things keep happening. It’s like a cold, frozen, dark season that goes on forever and ever.
And yet, we know the Lion moves. In our Christian faith, the Lion in The Chronicles of Narnia is often viewed as being an allegory for Jesus. As Romans 8:28 so beautifully states, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”
Times may be tough, but it will not last forever. Spring will come. Better times will come. Even with all the difficulties we face, we know there is a reason and a purpose, and that better things lay ahead.
Today, looking out the window, we can see the sunshine. Tomorrow, it is supposed to snow. But we know it won’t last forever. Aslan is on the move! Winter cannot keep its hold on us, and eventually, we will get through the tough times of winter and move into a new season. Until then, we have each other, and our faith grows stronger in the trials. And soon, perhaps very soon, spring will finally arrive.
It is hard to believe it’s been almost a month since I was in the hospital again. You can read a little about it here: https://talesfromnorthcountry.com/2022/02/14/its-not-always-about-us/. I ended up spending five days in the hospital. They found I had cellulitis, caused by a staph infection in my thigh and near my hip. We were afraid it had gone into the hip joint, and that I could be septic, but thankfully we caught it in time. After a lot of tests and nearly a week in the hospital with IV antibiotics, I was released with antibiotics to recover at home.
The infection has been slowly healing. I still have some soreness, discoloration, and a lot of itching, but that has been slowly getting better as well. I haven’t done a lot for physical therapy over the past few weeks as the leg heals but have tried to do a few at home as long as the pain is tolerable.
Occupational therapy continues to be everyday tasks at home. With the infection, I was pretty sick at first, but have been able to do a little bit more as I start to get better and stronger again. I still have some soreness from the November surgery, but it has gotten a lot better than it was. All of the trauma and surgeries have taken a toll on my body, and I’m just run down. 7 surgeries, at least 11 broken bones, and internal damage is a lot to recover from.
Songs on Repeat
Goodness of God by Bethel
House of the Lord by Phil Wickham
Here I am To Worship by Hillsong
Scripture and Quotes
A Little Joy
Towards the end of February, we added a new addition to our family. Meet Annie. She is a basset hound puppy. Her name means “grace” or ““God has favored me.”
Almost two years ago, I graduated with my second Master’s degree in the midst of the Covid Pandemic. The one thing I really wanted as a gift was a puppy. We searched shelters and many different sites, trying to find one, but people were grabbing up puppies as fast as they arrived. Both of our other dogs are rescues, and they were a little older when we got them. Still in the puppy stage, but halfway through it, so we wanted a younger dog this time around.
Then the accident happened, and everything got put off. After almost a year and a half of searching and waiting, we finally were able to find someone who had puppies. We went on the waiting list, and were finally able to get a puppy in February.
Annie has brought a lot of joy into our lives in the couple of weeks we’ve had her. A few photos…
Life is full of ups and downs, and she’s added lots of laughter and happiness during some very difficult times in our lives. Before the November surgery, I was hiking regularly and getting stronger with physical therapy. Since the surgery, it has been a long recovery. My body is just worn down, and I’ve only been out snowshoeing once all winter, before the infection and hospital stay.
I am hoping as my body begins to recover more, I will be able to take Annie and our two other dogs out for hikes. Not all at once of course, unless I have someone else with me willing to take a dog, but it will be good to get out again. I’ve missed it! I am hoping with surgery behind me, and the infection healing, I will finally be able to get back to getting stronger and feeling better again. It’s been a long journey! I’m so very thankful for the little joys in life, like sweet puppy snuggles, the kind words of a friend through a card, and beautiful sunrises despite the winter cold. Life moves forward, even in difficult times, and finding the little pieces of joy, no matter how small, makes the dark times a little easier.
Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy and other updates….
It’s been a busy couple of weeks. As I’ve slowly recovered from surgery in November and getting sick in January, I’ve started doing physical therapy exercises more consistently. Ben and I also signed up for a Gym membership. I’m hoping to regain the strength I lost on my left side after surgery in November. I also have a great workout buddy!
I’ve also continued to do everyday things around the house, such as laundry and dishes. Thanks to the help of one of our nephews and one of our nieces, I’ve even been able to get some cleaning and organizing done. I’m really trying to get back to a regular chair, instead of a recliner most of the time. I was getting there in November, but the last surgery took a lot out of me.
Our niece and nephew also went out snowshoeing with me. I knew it wasn’t safe to go alone, so they went with me. My hip was hurting a lot by the time we finished, and it took us over an hour and a half to go less than a mile. We used hand warmers to keep my hip and wrist from being to cold. My pain increases a lot when they get cold. We had to take breaks a lot, but it felt really good to get out.
As I write this, I’m actually in the emergency room. Last night, I developed a fever and wasn’t feeling well. I figured I was catching something. This morning, I woke up to a red hip and thigh. The skin is hot to the touch and very painful and itchy.
After a lot of tests, they believe I have an infection. As soon as they have a bed open, I’m getting transferred to Traverse City with more tests to come tomorrow. They plan to do a hip aspiration to find out more about the infection and go from there. Sometimes it seems this journey doesn’t end.
Scripture and quotes:
Songs on Repeat
Goodness Of God, by Bethel Music
Believer, by Imagine Dragons
Help is On The Way, by TobyMac
It’s Not Always About Us
If there is anything I’ve learned along this journey, it’s that it’s not always about us. Things that happen to us, difficult things we go through, problems we face. They aren’t just about us
Sometimes what happens to us are really opportunities to make someone else’s life better. Maybe through a smile at a nurse whose had a rough day, or a prayer for the person in another room who is obviously suffering. There is a bigger plan than just us and what happens to us. We never know the impact we have on someone else.
Going through difficult things can actually have a positive influence on someone else. I truly believe everything happens for a reason. We never know whose life is going to be better because of our hard times, because of how we respond and how we react to challenges. Difficult times are a part of life, but they don’t have to break us. Instead, we can use them to hopefully inspire others and make someone else’s life at least a little better.
Life isn’t about us. It’s about so much more. When we look for opportunities to help others and make their day just a little brighter, no matter how bad our day is, we can give others hope and inspiration.
If you’re facing tough times, it may not be about you. It may be about the opportunity to inspire and bless people you encounter on your journey. Look for those opportunities.
January has been a very off month. I was planning to start back up with physical therapy exercises, and even had an appointment scheduled to tour a gym, but then got sick. Ben was sick over Christmas and New Year’s, and then I came down with whatever he had near the beginning of January. So, the gym tour had to be postponed. I love the hospital gym I went to before surgery, after outpatient physical therapy, but scheduling with their classes and everything else we had going on was becoming difficult. Instead, Ben and I decided to do a gym membership so we could go together and have a more flexible schedule. Between a long recovery from surgery, and then getting sick, I’ve lost a fair amount of strength. I think my body is just run down.
A few days after I got sick, Ben became ill again. It’s been a long month with both of us slowly recovering. I am hoping to schedule a gym tour soon and get a membership so I can get back at independent PT and strengthening my left side. In the meantime, I’ve been doing the physical therapy exercises at home that I learned during my time in in-home and outpatient physical therapy.
Occupational therapy continues to be mostly everyday tasks. With Ben being sick, I’ve been doing more of the cooking. I’ve never been much of a cook, but I’m learning to make a few things that are pretty good. One of our dogs used to sit and whine whenever I would attempt to cook because it never turned out well, but he’s starting to accept that I can cook a little. Sometimes I think he’s even looking forward to my cooking. 🙂 A few of the things I’ve made… Taco salad, fried chicken breast, Tator tot casserole.
Our Catahoula, letting me know he’s ready to eat and is looking forward to me cooking. We make our dogs food because of his allergies.
I am noticing a big difference outside this year. The pain in my left wrist especially, which has two metal plates, gets pretty intense. The colder the weather is, the worst the pain. My hip and ankle sometimes get annoyed with the cold too, but are easier to protect than my wrist, especially if I want to do anything with my hands outside. I am hoping handwarmers will help with this some at least.
Snowbelt Living
Living in the snowbelt of northwest lower Michigan, we tend to get a fair amount of snow. This year, we’ve had less than normal but got hit pretty hard over the last few days. I’ve been trying to take short walks around our yard. Walking in the snow isn’t easy for me, but I’m sure it will get easier with time. Like I said, I lost quite a bit of strength after the last surgery and am hoping to get it back. I do have snowshoes and want to try snowshoeing again soon, but it’s been so cold, and my body just doesn’t tolerate the cold temperatures well anymore.
Both of our dogs love the snow, especially our Catahoula. It can be pretty much a blizzard and he wants to go outside at least for a little bit. I’ve shared a photo of him enjoying some of the recent snow we had.
Songs on Repeat
Love Feels Like- TobyMac, Michael Tait, Kevin Max
Hurt -Johnny Cash
Ring of Fire- Johnny Cash
Keep Your Head Up- Andy Grammer
Quotes and Scripture From This Month:
When Life Gives You Lemons
This past year hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park. Between the car accident, deaths in the family, sickness, appliances breaking, and just life in general, things have been hard at times. The saying “When life gives you lemon, make lemonade” comes to mind in all of this. It’s a way of finding the positive, even in the really difficult times. A way of sweetening something that should be sour.
This isn’t always easy. But finding the sweet in the sour makes things a little more bearable at least. We’ve had a lot of lemons this past year. Yet there continue to be sweet moments too. Like the beautiful sunsets against the snow, or the chickadees coming to our birdfeeders to eat, or the extra time we’ve had to rest and recuperate because we both ended up sick.
For both Ben and I, our faith helps a lot with this. Knowing that even in the worst of times, God has a plan and a purpose for it all. Even before the accident, I would often try to find things I was grateful for. It helps put things into perspective and makes the difficult seem just a little less so. Life is full of lemons. But we don’t have to focus on that. We can choose instead to focus on the sweetness, and make lemonade.
Every year, I like to make and set goals for myself. You can read about the goals from 2021 and 2022 here: https://talesfromnorthcountry.com/2021/12/31/new-years-resolutions-2022/ Over the past several years, I have had people ask me about my system for setting and reaching goals. It’s fairly extensive and I realize it may not work for everyone, but it works for me.
Choosing Goals
One of the first things I do is to think about where I want to be a year from now, five years from now, and ten years from now. This can be career related, hobby related, location related, fitness related or anything else I want to change in my life. I like to work backwards. So I start with where I want to be in five or ten years and go backwards from there.
Also, I’ve been learning I need to limit goals. Charlie Gilkey (I’ll link to his book later) does a great job of talking about this in his book Start Finishing. He suggests picking no more than 3-5 goals (or projects as he calls them) at a time. So I limit myself every year to 3-5 projects, all based on where I want to be in 5 or 10 years but narrowed down so they are doable in a year.
I’m also learning to set SMART goals. Gilkey talks about this a lot. I made up my own pintables to help me to do so, but there are many out there. I will link to them below if anyone wants to print off the ones I made and use them. I shared a picture below that breaks down how I set the goals, thinking about each component (are they specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely?) Gilkey’s planner adds to this a lot. My sheets are just extras because I wanted more space to actually write out each goal and reflect on it.
One, Five and Ten Year Plans
It’s hard to plan too far ahead because life gets in the way. I start with an idea of where I want to be, but the real planning is for the next year. My 5- and 10-year goals play a role in where I want to be a year from now, but I don’t do a lot with them. For example, I want to be a published author. I want to write books. The reality is that writing books takes time, and it may take me closer to 5 or even 10 years to reach that goal. I could write out an entire five-year plan to write several books in the next few years and try to get them published, but life gets in the way, and I would likely never reach that goal.
So instead, I focus on the upcoming year. I know that long term, I want to publish several books. That’s a great goal, but too much can change between now and year 5. So instead, I make a plan for the coming year. What can I do this year? I can write a book, edit it, and begin to look for beta readers. I may even be able to get it sent out to publishers. So that becomes a goal for the coming year, knowing that in five years I want to have more than one book published, but I’m going to focus on one year at a time. I believe it is important to think about the future but planning too far in advance can lead to a lot of frustration if things don’t pan out.
One Year Goal Month by Month
Once I have an idea of where I want to go long term, I make a plan for the year on how I’m going to get there. I lay out quarterly and monthly plans. I use a system through Productive Flourishing Momentum Planners. The owner also wrote a book called ‘Start Finishing.‘ I highly recommend the book if you really want to start finishing projects you start. Productive Flourishing Planners have pages to layout the year and months. You can get a month at a time free on their site, but I recommend purchasing the planner. You can choose a digital PDF version or a printed copy, and I believe they are working on an app as well which should be available next year. I don’t get anything for advertising their products, but their planners have helped me so much, I like to tell others about them whenever I can.
Using their planners, I layout each quarter and each month. I set goals for each quarter, then use those goals to set goals for the month. Going back to my writing goal, I would break that goal down. So instead of “This year, I will write a book,” the goal becomes “In this quarter, I will write 80,000 words in my story.” Then, In January, I will write 50,000 words.” In February, I might write “In February, I will write 30,000 more words.” In March, the goal might be “I will catchup any missed words and begin the editing process.”
Over the course of the year, I will break down what I need to do to reach the initial goal of publishing a book. This includes editing, beta readers, and sending it to a publisher. I lay it out in the planners and set deadlines for myself of when each thing needs to be done. Everything from the quarterly and month goals then gets transferred week by week to the weekly planners, with the goals broken down a little more.
Weekly and Daily
Every week, I look at my schedule for the week and my goals for that month. I set goals for that week, based on the overall goal for that month. For example, if my goal in January is to write 50,000 words, I divide that by the number of weeks in January (about 4) and make a goal for the week based on that. I would aim to write about 12,500 words that week. I would then divide this up by the number of words to write per day (1785) and by the end of the month, I should have at least 50,000 words.
Now, when I look at my weekly schedule, let’s say I notice Friday is a really busy day that week. As I move from writing my weekly schedule to my daily schedule, I will keep this in mind and set a lower goal for that day. Instead of setting my goal to write 1785 words that day, I’ll add extra words to another day and write more to make up the difference. In that way, I can still reach my goal, but I’ve got a better cushion when life gets in the way.
Reflection
At the end of the day, week, month, quarter, and year, I try to take time to reflect on where I’m at with my goals. This doesn’t happen every day, or even every week. Life gets in the way. But it’s still important to keep track of where I’m at and consider where I want to go from there.
I also use visual trackers, such as goal ladders and habit tracker sheets, to help me stay on task and keep track of where I’m at with a goal. This also helps me see if I need to adjust my goal. For example, maybe in January, I plan to write 50,000 words, but then I get sick. (Let’s hope that doesn’t happen, but it has in the past.) My visual tracker would either be blank because I was too sick to write on it, or I would have just scribbled “sick” across those days. Now, as I write my goals for the rest of the month each week, or when I get to February’s goal, I may need to adjust. Maybe I’m not going to reach 50,000 words in January, but I can do more in February and push some into March. Or, maybe the goal needs to change all together because of what happened that month.
This isn’t to be an excuse for never reaching my goals. Rather it’s a cushion for times when life does happen; the tire is flat on my car when I am trying to get to the gym; the power goes out when I’ve committed to reading another chapter and I can’t find a flashlight; I get super sick right in the middle of trying to finish 50,000 words in a month. All of these are real life situations that happen. They can stop me for a day, or even a couple of weeks, but the important thing is to not let the setbacks stop me all together. I make adjustments to my goals as needed, and move forward, knowing that at the end of the year, I can look back and say I tried my hardest and did my best despite any obstacles that came my way.
Summary:
Do I reach every goal 100% of the time? Nope. And that’s ok. I reconfigure and keep going. Change your plan if needed, even change your dreams if you can tell they are shifting, but don’t give up reaching for your goals.
Do you have to do every part of what I do? Nope. That’s the beauty of a plan. It’s your own. You can use what works for you, and even combine this system with another. It’s about finding what works best for you to help you reach the goals you want to accomplish.
The important thing is to find what works and stick with it. Don’t give up just because it gets hard, because it will get hard! I think I could do an entire blogpost just on chasing dreams and not giving up. But just know that once you start trying to set goals and chase your dreams, it will be hard, but it will be worth it in the end. There’s a difference between changing your dreams because they’ve changed and grown with you, and giving up on your dreams. Make a plan, be ready to adjust that plan, but never give up on reaching the final goal unless you know for certain that final goal needs to change.
Quick Summary:
Sometimes I can be wordy. So here is a quick summary of the above:
Amazing Resources I’ve found over the last few years:
(Most cost, but are so worth it!)
Links to Gilkey’s Planners and his book…. Because I can’t recommend them enough!!!!
What a year this has been! I’ve spent pretty much this entire year recovering from the auto accident. Ben’s neuropathy continues to get worse, with no known cause. We’ve had our share of ups and downs this year, with it sometimes seeming like the downs outweigh the ups.
Sometimes finding the good with all the bad can be difficult. As we look back on 2021, we are thankful that we are both still here. We are both alive. Most of the animals are still alive. We lost our rabbit Samwise while I was in the hospital but gained some new baby bunnies over the summer. We have a house to live in, and good food to eat. We can read almost anything we want to read at the click of a button, and worship as we choose. As I write this, I’m typing it from a decent computer that runs pretty well, and I have the ability to back up things as needed. We have cold, fresh water to drink whenever we want it, indoor plumbing and electricity. It’s been a tough few years, but there is still so much to be thankful for.
We look to 2022, with hope and anticipation of what is yet to come. And with that, we plan for the year ahead, knowing any plan made isn’t likely to stick 100%, but striving to reach at least some goals.
Review of Last Year’s Goals
Every year, I (Cindy) set goals for myself. Here are my goals last year, and how I did on completing them:
1. Regain my independence: I’ve regained much of my independence. I lost some of it after the latest surgery but am in the process of gaining it back.
2. Regain my strength: I’ve regained much of my strength, then lost some of it after the latest surgery. I will soon be beginning the process again to get my strength back.
3. Have any further surgeries that I need to have and come back from that: I had the latest surgery in November, and am in the process of getting stronger from it.
4. Finish my book series, Or at least get it organized enough that I can have a deadline better for finishing it: I did not complete this goal. Looking back, it was pretty unrealistic, all things considered. I did get a fair amount of writing done, despite having two broken wrists, and I started to organize things a little more. I also started a different series, with the goal of completing the first book in that within the next year, and coming back to my longer series at another time.
5. Start a book about my experiences: I started a book about my experiences. I’ve gotten about 11,000 words. It’s a work in progress.
6. Write at least 10,000 more words in my series before the end of January using Voice to text.:I was not able to meet this goal. My hip re-dislocated during rehab, and I ended up having four more surgeries by the end of January.
7. Blog more regularly: I have blogged more regularly on www.talesfromnorthcountry.com, but not as much on www.myamuseinglife.com. I hope to do more of both in the coming year. Just in case anyone is wondering, My Amuseing Life is not a spelling mistake, it is done this way on purpose, as a play on words. A-muse-ing, with muse being one of the keywords of the blog. It is my blog for creative writing, everything from fiction, poetry, writing prompts, and more.
Goals for Next Year:
Over the past few years, I’ve started using a system from Charlie Gilkey, author of Start Finishing. He also has a business, Productive Flourishing, that puts out amazing planners. I read a lot of self-help books, but his system is one of the best I’ve found. One of the things he recommends is only doing 3 to 5 projects at one time. So with that, I’m trying to limit my goals for the coming year to five.
Goals for 2022:
By December 31, 2022, I will write a book, edit it, send it to beta readers, and seek out getting it published. This goal might be too much for one year with everything we’ve had going on, but I do have quite a bit written already, and I really want to start pursuing publishing more. So I am hoping to meet this goal, or at least most of it.
By December 31, 2022, I will make time to enjoy a variety of my hobbies each week, including in music, reading, photography, birdwatching, arts and crafts, and writing. My hobbies are important to me, but I often don’t make time to do them. I read a book called Atomic Habits, by James Clear this year, and have been working on adding my hobbies into routines I already do.
By December 31, 2022, I will gain strength and become more physically fit. This one is extremely important after the accident. I really need to complete workouts and physical therapy exercises to regain strength. I am hoping in the process, I will become more physically fit, but my main focus for this year is on regaining strength and building my endurance.
By December 31, 2022, I will complete tasks around the house following weekly, monthly, and yearly checklists. I’ve actually done this one for several years now, but with limiting myself on goals and trying to do well with what I am doing, this really needs to be one of the projects I do. It takes time to complete chores and other tasks around the house, so I need to make it part of what I’m doing. Otherwise, I try for too many projects and don’t complete half of them, and then feel discouraged.
By December 31, 2022, I will create and carry out goals related to work, including teaching, blogging and photography. This was a really tricky one to write. Normally, I would narrow it down more. I had hoped to return to teaching in January, but recovery from the latest surgery is taking longer than expected. I try to treat my blogging and photography like jobs, as I do sometimes get income from them, and I want to do better in both areas too. When I am able to return to teaching, I will create goals for myself based on the current needs. In the meantime, Occupational Therapy encouraged me to blog as much as I can, as it helps build my endurance for typing. I was also encouraged to do more with my photography, as using my hands more can help build endurance with my wrists as well. So it becomes like a second job and third job in a sense. It’s really hard to write goals for these areas with things up in the air, so this area will become a series of mini goals throughout the year. I may also have to change some of my other goals a little bit, or may not meet them 100%, but this is just an unusual year with everything that’s happened.
Physical and Occupational Therapy/ Surgery Recovery
The recovery from the surgery I had in November continues to be longer than expected. I have been slowly building my stamina back up, and am able to do a little more most days. I still have days when I’m pretty sore, but have found if I rest for a day or two, the soreness mostly goes away and then I am less sore and able to do more afterwards.
Physical therapy has pretty much been put on hold until I recover more. I have been trying to do some simple PT exercises that my therapists taught me, such as lifting my legs as high as I can and rolling my ankles, but for the most part, I am not able to do a lot yet. I am getting closer though, and hope to return to PT after the New Year. For Occupational Therapy, most of what I do involves common, everyday things around the house such as pulling out laundry from the washer to the dryer, or folding it to put the laundry away. Sometimes I will use weights or a hammer with my wrists to help stretch the muscles out when they get tight.
Writing
My writing was slowed a little bit the past week, with the power outage. I’m hoping to catch back up in the next couple of days. I am aiming to write at least 50,000 words like I did for NaNoWriMo in November. So far, I’ve managed to write about 34,000 words this month.
I am also hoping to start posting a little more on www.myamuseinglife.com. It has been hard to get back into a routine now that I am able to type more, but I would really like to get my writing blog back up more.
Books On My Shelf
Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess, by Dr. Caroline Leaf
Feeding the Soul, by Tabitha Brown
Redeeming Love, by Francine Rivers
The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
Please note: I recommend books I am enjoying, but may still be reading some of them. It is always possible I may miss something inappropriate or may not have read a section yet that is inappropriate. Also, things I don’t have a problem with, others may find offensive and vice versa. While I am enjoying and recommend these books, please use your own discretion when picking out books to read.
Scripture and Quotes:
Tis The Season
We are hoping to get a family photo at some point, but I thought I would share photos of our dogs for now, with their Christmas Bandanas. Christmas has been my favorite holiday pretty much my entire life. I like to go all out, with decorations both inside and outside the house as early in the season as we can get them up, and Christmas music playing, as well as special treats throughout the month of December. Last year, it was a very different celebration which I wrote about here…https://talesfromnorthcountry.com/2021/01/01/a-christmas-to-remember/.
This year is still not going to be a “normal” Christmas for us. Between me still healing from surgery, a power outage, and Ben’s health, the entire season feels off. It’s not our normal. But it is a new normal. We’ve been having a lot of conversations about starting some new traditions and finding a new normal in all of this.
Ultimately, no matter what we end up doing, what matters most is the reason we even celebrate Christmas to begin with. Now I realize there are many different beliefs out there, and not everyone agrees on Christmas. To me, Christmas is the time of year we celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. I know this likely isn’t His actual birthday, and I am also aware that much of Christmas as we know actually came from pagans.
But I choose to celebrate because I want to honor the One who came to save the world. I need to be reminded every year, not only of the fact that He came, but how He came. Every year, we put up a tree and I reminded that my Savior gave His life on a tree for us. We add tinsel, and I am reminded of how Jesus is the One true King. We put up the lights, and I am reminded that He is the light of the world. We add ornaments, and I am reminded of all the years He’s given me on this earth so far. So much of this season reminds me of my faith. No matter what happens, no matter what traditions we miss out on, or how difficult things are, the one thing that remains constant is the Reason for the Season.
Last Christmas was a Christmas to Remember. This Christmas is as well, in different ways. In many ways, every Christmas is special, unique. Yet some stand out more than others, and the past couple of years are an example of this. Tis the season for lights, tinsel, gifts, time with family, decorations, and so many other things. Yet it is also the season of hope. Of a belief in a better tomorrow, and a time to celebrate a Babe born so long ago who came to save the world.
I know for non-believers, it doesn’t always make sense. There is so much about the Christian faith that relies on belief, not seeing. To quote from The Santa Claus movie “Seeing isn’t believing; Believing is seeing.” Sometimes, I think more often than not, we aren’t going to see the entire path in front of us. We just have to believe that it’s there.
This season may be different for us than many others in the past, but we choose to celebrate no matter what circumstances we find ourselves because it isn’t just about tinsel, and lights, good food, time with family and all the other little things we do. It’s about so much more. It’s about hope, faith, and love. It’s about a love so great that a baby would be born, and grow up to suffer and die for us. Our circumstances cannot change that. Tis the season for joy, for reflection and peace. Because in this season, we got the greatest gift we could have possibly dreamed of, and nothing on this earth can ever change that.
With today being the one-year anniversary of our accident, this post will be a little bit different. I had hoped to post earlier last week, but we lost power due to a wind storm. I hope to do another regular post and update before Christmas.
December 19, 2020
One year ago today, our world changed forever. You can read about that day here:
It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since that horrific day. It’s a day we will remember for the rest of our lives. We set out on an everyday common adventure. A trip to the store, a trip for Christmas items. It was something we’d done many times before and since. But that day was different.
That day we were swept off to an adventure of epic proportions. A dangerous, life-threatening adventure that nearly took my life, but an adventure, nonetheless.
Life is full of adventure, danger and challenges we must face. Some of them are mundane, every day tasks that take us from one thing to the next. Some of them are much more exctiing and fun. Others are dangerous and even deadly. We don’t always get to choose which adventures we take. Sometimes life chooses for us.
Powerless Adventure
This past week is another example of that. Thursday night, we had a major windstorm where we live, with hurricane level 1 force winds, even though we don’t have hurricanes in northwest lower Michigan. But this storm was strong, and the strength of it took down trees and powerlines. We ended up without power and heat for several days.
The first day, we lit candles and opened up window shades the best we could so we could see. I huddled under blankets for warmth as the temperature in the house dropped into the 50’s. Ben and I spent the day reading books, enjoying good conversation and checking our phones to see when the power might come back on. We have a couple of battery packs, so we were able to charge devices, but by the end of the day, the batteries in those were pretty well drained.
By Friday morning, our cell phone batteries were draining, and the temperature in the house had dropped to 48. Originally, the power was expected to be restored Friday morning early, but it wasn’t, and the new time was for Sunday (today), early morning. We packed in a rather dark house, taking what we could find and see that we might need for a few days, then headed downstate to where my parents live for a visit.
We’ve spent the weekend at their house, on the family Homestead in Sanford. I’m sure another time I’ll do a separate post on the Homestead, but for now, I’ll just share a couple of photos. As a child, I helped to plant these white pine trees. It became kind of an annual tradition on Earth day. They have gotten so big! There are so many memories of great adventures on the Homestead, but that is another story for another day.
I am still sore, and wasn’t able to do a lot, but we could ride around to look at lights, and enjoyed time just sitting and talking. One of our nieces is also recovering from a recent foot surgery, so we got to visit with her as well and share stories of my own experiences with her.
Sanford Strong
It was very nice to visit with family, and we got to see some Christmas lights too. One of the light displays is a part of Sanford Shines. You may have heard about the dams breaking in the Sanford area in 2020. You can find ways to help the community through Sanford Strong, and footage of the flooding here:
Some of the lights we saw:
2020 was a rough year for so many people, and for my parents, their town was basically wiped out when area dams burst in May of 2020. The year would end with a bang, literally, when our accident happened.
Ordinary Becomes Extraordinary
I know I’ve written several posts this year about getting through tough times and finding joy even it’s hard. I saw a post from someone on Social Media awhile back that talked about finding the extraordinary in the mundane, and I think this concept really helps getting through even the worst of circumstances.
Instead of running an errand, I’m completing a side quest. I’m not cleaning under the couch, I’m looking for buried treasure. I’m not a victim of a car accident. I was sent on a dangerous, extraordinary quest, and along the way, I met incredible people who helped me recover from the injuries I received during an encounter with the ice beast. Mindset is everything.
When the ordinary becomes the extraordinary, I think the really difficult things in life get just a little easier. We can face dangerous, even deadly situations, knowing that it’s all part of something greater than ourselves. There are no ordinary days, no regular people. Everyone has a roll to play in a story so much greater than any of us could ever imagine.
Sure, this year has been dangerous. Even scary and life-threatening at times. But it has also been an adventure. An adventure that continues to this day. But what would life be without it? If everything was always safe and warm, and cozy? We need adventure, even with all of the dangers that are faced along the way, the monsters and beasts we fight, the life-threatening situations we find ourselves in. Without adventure, life may be safe and calm but we would also miss out. We wouldn’t meet the incredible people we do on adventures, or find ourselves looking at life in another way because we can’t just turn out a light switch or turn up the heat. We would miss amazing sunrises and waves rolling in off the Great Lakes, or the silence in the woods after a fresh fallen snow. There are gifts, sometimes very special gifts for us on the most dangerous of adventures, if we will just stop and take the time to see them.
So I choose to see this as a great adventure, as part of a plan far greater than myself. I choose to find the extraordinary even in the ordinary, to find adventure in every single day. It’s not always easy, but the greatest adventures never are.
What a year this has been! I look back on this past year, and I’m amazed at how far God has brought me. I look to the next with anticipation of what adventures lay just ahead, and I watch for the ordinary to become extraordinary.
Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy and Surgery
About three weeks ago, I had surgery to fix some of the internal damage caused during the accident. As I mentioned before, I had two hernias that needed to be fixed, one large and one small, involving a couple of my organs. The surgery itself went pretty well, but during surgery, they discovered that what they thought was a small hernia was much larger than expected, and more of my organs than initially thought were involved. The surgery took longer than planned, and recovery is also taking longer. It ended up being a pretty major surgery, but thankfully the doctors were still able to do it robotically with just a couple of extra small cuts.
I have a weight restriction until at least the first week in December, and have to limit exercise to walking. I haven’t been able to do many chores over the past three weeks either. Most of Physical therapy has been put on hold until I recover from this surgery enough to start back up. I will begin increasing how much weight I lift in the next couple of weeks, and see how it goes. Recovery has been much slower than we expected, but each day I am able to do a little bit more.
Writing
One of the few perks of not being able to do much after surgery is having more time to write. I have a wireless keyboard and mouse, so I’m able to sit back with an ice pack on my stomach and write while I rest. I mentioned writing briefly a couple of posts ago, and again in my Thanksgiving post, but wanted to talk more about it.
I’ve been a writer since I could put pencil to paper. I’ve written articles for others blogs and newspapers, run my own blogs such as this one and www.myamuseinglife.com, and had a little something published in someone else’s book, but I have yet to publish my own books. Over the past eight years, I’ve really started taking my writing seriously and tried to write more each year. For the most part, even with getting two Master’s degree, I’ve been successful at writing more and more. Until this year at least. Not being able to write has been really tough. I found ways to keep trying to write, like speech to text, but it hasn’t been easy, and I’ve found myself feeling anxious a lot. It’s made me realize just how true the following quote is:
Writing has become as natural as breathing. November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo as we call it in the writing world. If you aren’t familiar with it, it is where you write 50,000 words or more in a month. Some people are what we call “NaNoWriMo Rebels,” and they may set smaller goals as well. I did this back in July, knowing I wasn’t likely to hit the 50,000 with everything going on. My goal in July was 15,000 and I was able to meet that.
I usually do NaNoWriMo and Camp NaNoWriMo (which run in April and July) every year, every chance I get. Sometimes I fail, sometimes I succeed. But I try to remind myself that every word I write is more than what I would have had otherwise. NaNoWriMo has changed my writing life, and I often write 50,000 words under normal circumstances during non-NaNoWriMo months as well. Before the accident, it wasn’t uncommon for me to have 5000-6000 word days, especially after I finished my second Master’s degree and had more time to write. Sometimes I would even have 8000-10,000 word days.
Since the accident, I’ve been able to write very little. Most of the writing in this blog after the accident was done at first using a microphone and speech to text software. As I started being able to type, I began writing more with the keyboard, but it’s been a long road back.
This month, November of 2021, I met my NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000 words. I averaged about 2000 words a day, took a few days off for surgery recovery, and had a few 4000-5000 word days as well. I even managed to finish a few days early, and started writing more in another series I’m working on. All together, I’ve written over 60,000 words this month. This is huge. It’s still only half of what I could write on an average day, which means if I had the time and physical ability, I could probably write almost twice that in some months, but I managed to meet my goal. It was a pretty big deal, and another step on my road to recovery. It’s also helped to keep my mind busy while recovering from surgery, since it is taking much longer than expected. So this week, I celebrate not only meeting that goal but going over it.
Ben’s Health
We’ve mentioned Ben’s health a few times. Most people know that he has idiopathic peripheral neuropathy. We still don’t have any real answers on his health, and the neuropathy has started spreading to his hands. We try to just take it one day at a time. He has several medications that he takes. One of them makes him sleepy a lot, but it has helped him get more rest and improved his overall mood and pain level when he is awake. Hopefully one day we will have more answers than questions, but for now, we keep searching and asking those questions.
Songs on Repeat
Help Is On The Way- TobyMac
Lauren Daigle- Rescue
Lecrae- I’ll Find You
This one really isn’t a song, but worth the share…Jordan Peterson; A Wing and A Prayer
Scripture and Quotes
It’s Enough to Keep Going
This year really hasn’t been an easy one. If we’re honest, we’ve had a lot of really difficult years. A lot of loss, pain, death, sorrow.
Ben and I will celebrate ten years of marriage on Friday, and even in all the loss, even with all the pain and grief we’ve faced, there is still light and hope. Our relationship is strong, and good. God has given us each other to lean on even in the really tough times. And there certainly have been a lot of them, but that seems to be so much of life. Just when we think things might get easier, better, something else happens. Life is full of surprises. To quote Michonne from ‘The Walking Dead’ TV show:
“But it hasn’t gotten any easier. Sun keeps rising. Days keep passing. World keeps spinning. Time- it just keeps moving forward. Weeks, months, even years go by., while you try to make sense of it all. Try to find where you belong, try to look ahead to a better future. But the truth is, the path ahead has only grown darker. It’s harder to see. You can feel so lost, so alone, so desperate for something, anything that might show you the way.
But even now, after all this time, surrounded by darkness, there are still flashes of light, tiny beacons that shine out, calling to us. It’s not enough to light the way ahead, but it’s enough to keep going. Keep trying, keep fighting, Keep dreaming. So that’s what I do. Every second of every day. For you, for us. I haven’t given up, and I never will.”
Life is full of so many twists and turns. Sometimes it feels very dark, and yet the light is always there. Our Christian faith carries us through these dark times. Our trust that God is there, lighting the way, even if all we can see is a small flicker of the way ahead, is enough. Years fly by, and sometimes we can’t understand everything we are facing, but we don’t have to.
The little flickers of hope are always there. The love we receive from others, sometimes strangers we barely know, the messages from those who don’t even know us but want to reach out, the love from family and friend are all beacons of light. Our story becomes part of others stories too. All of it speaks of something greater than all of us, of a purpose for everything that happens.
I’ve always loved the Christmas season and enjoy watching Christmas lights blink on and off. It’s amazing how much those little tiny lights can light up a dark room. In the Christian faith, Christmas is important because it is the day we celebrate the birth of Christ. Now I know that He wasn’t really born at this time, but it is when we celebrate. Every year, when I see the lights, I am reminded of the Light that came to the world.
Sometimes when life throws us so many curves, it can be really hard to see light through the dark. But light shines through the darkness, always. Sometimes only in small flickers, but it is always there.
Look to the Light. He’s enough to keep us going, even in the midst of dark times.
This blog post will be a little bit different than the ones I’ve been doing. I will do an update in another blog post, but with today being Thanksgiving, I wanted to do a thankful for post. During the month of November, I will often post something every day that I am thankful for on Social Media. I actually do this other months as well, but November tends to be the typical month for many people to share what they are thankful for because of Thanksgiving.
We had so much going on this year, and I knew it was going to be a challenge to try to keep up with daily posts on what I’m thankful for. At the same time, I think it is important to take the time to stop and count our blessings throughout the year. I thought a blog post with 30 things I’m thankful for would be the way to go this year.
30 Things I am Thankful for:
1. My faith
My Christan faith has been an important part of my life since I was very young. I am so thankful for many different aspects of my faith, including the gift of Salvation and the fact that I am never alone in this journey.
2. My husband
Ben and I met online through eHarmoney. We’ve been married for almost 10 years now, and have been together for almost 12 years. We’ve been through a lot in our (almost) ten years of marriage, but have an amazing relationship. I am so very thankful God brought Ben into my life!
3. Family
I am so very thankful for both of our families!
4. Friends
I am so very thankful for the friends we have. I figured it was a lot to try to share photos of everyone here, and I wouldn’t want to miss someone, so instead I’m sharing a photo of a quilt a friend made for us.
5. Our pets
I am very thankful for our rabbits and dogs!
6. Life
I am so very thankful to be alive and to be able to celebrate life!
7. Clean Water to drink and good food to eat
I am thankful for clean water to drink and delicious food to eat!
8. The ability to write
I am thankful for the ability to write, and for finally being able to write more again! This month, I was able to complete 50,000 words in my fiction series as part of NaNoWriMo. This is the most I’ve been able to write since the accident.
9. The Bible
I am very thankful for the Bible!
10. Good books to read
A few of my favorites…
11. Music
I am thankful for music! I play a little bit of guitar and piano, but I’m also very thankful for the many amazing bands out there who make some awesome music!
12. Education
I am thankful for the amazing opportunities I’ve had to learn, and to teach. I am thankful we live in a country where we can all get an education in a career of our choosing.
13. Sunrises and Sunsets
I am thankful for the beautiful sunrises and sunsets we have!
14. Technology
I am thankful for the wide variety of technology we have.
15. A house to live in
I am very thankful for a warm house in the wintertime, and a cool house in the summer time!
16. Harvest
I am thankful for food we can grow, harvest and preserve!
17. The great outdoors
I am thankful for the great outdoors!
18. Art
I am thankful for art, for how it allows us to be creative and unique, and the beautiful pieces we have as a result.
19. Planners
I am thankful for planners that help me to focus and get things accomplished. I am also thankful for authors like Charlie Gilkey who share their insights and tools on organization with the world.
20. Good pens and highlighters
I am thankful for good pens and highlighters. I love Mr. Pen highlighters and pens for lighter pages, such as the Bible or thin paper, and Pilot pens for other kinds of writing.
21. Streaming services
I am thankful for streaming services that provide us with a wide variety of entertainment. (We don’t have all of these services; this was just the photo I found.)
22. Freedom
I am thankful for the freedoms we have in our country!
23. Ancestors
I am thankful for those who came before us, those who helped shape me into the person I am today.
24. Good footwear
I am thankful for warm boots in the winter and sandals in the summer time.
25. Snow belt living
I am thankful to live in the snowbelt of Northern Lower Michigan!
26. Changing Seasons
I am thankful for the changing seasons we have in Michigan!
27. Amazing Medical Staff
I am thankful for amazing medical staff and therapists who have helped me this year.
28. The little things we pass by
I am thankful for the little things we pass by every day. Sometimes we see them, but more often that not, we pass right by.
29. Open water
I am thankful for the Great Lakes, and other bodies of open water we have here in Michigan!
30. Wonders of the night
I am thankful for stary nights, full moons, views of planets, and so many of the other wonderful things we can see in the night sky!
The last few weeks have been packed with appointments, preparing for surgery and trying to get our dog Wesley better from an ear infection so I haven’t had a chance to blog.
Physical and occupational therapy is at a minimal right now. I did manage to get some short walks in before surgery, and for OT, I’m trying to use my wrists as I would have before the accident as much as I can on a daily basis. I have been writing almost daily, other than the day of surgery and for a few days after. More on that later. Before surgery, I was doing most of the basic chores around the house again without much support with some accommodations for my left wrist. I was also doing physical therapy stretches throughout the day.
I had surgery this past week to fix some of the internal damage caused in the accident. Going in for another surgery was scary. It was my 7th this year, and I wasn’t looking forward to it, but I’m glad it’s behind me now.
My liver and colon were both herniated when my abdominal wall was severely damaged. This all needed to be fixed. The surgery went well overall and they were able to do it laparoscopically. However, once they began the procedure, they discovered one of the hernias was much larger than expected, and my gall bladder was effected as well. The surgery took longer than planned, and I had a really hard time coming out of anesthesia once surgery was over with. I spent a night in the hospital. I came home on Wednesday.
The next few days after that were pretty rough. I have a high pain tolerance and don’t think about taking pain meds until I’m really hurting a lot. I also react poorly to a lot of meds, and they leaving me feeling worse with them than without unless my pain gets too high. Adding to that, I had really tight muscles in my back from all the trauma, and in addition to that, they filled my body with gas for the surgery and after surgery, you have to move to get that out. It’s been a balance between remembering to take pain meds regularly even if I don’t feel like I need them right then, trying to relax the muscles in my back, and trying to make sure I’m up and moving around as much as possible.
Today (Sunday) we’ve gotten the muscles to relax some with heat and muscle relaxers. As long as I keep the meds in my system for the majority of the day, I limit my walking, and frequently change how I’m sitting, the pain isn’t too bad. The pain from the surgery itself is minimal compared to the back pain. It’s uncomfortable to walk, but unbearable, and hurts when I cough, hiccup, or sneeze. I’ve been able to do a little more each day, but this surgery has definitely shown just how much I was relying on my right side to overcompensate for the left side.
I wasn’t able to get many photos during my hospital stay, but I did have a nice view and got a snapshot of the sunset the night I was there. I’ve also shared a couple of photos of our dogs. Chewbaca has been very worried about me, but Wesley doesn’t like change and has been annoyed that I’m not keeping up his regular schedule right now. If they could talk, Chewy be the one cheering me on, and Wesley would be the one telling me I needed to get up and get moving so he can get what he wants (which is usually food.) They are both sweet dogs, just different and one is way more empathetic than the other.
Snow Belt Living
Living in the snow belt, we often get snow when others don’t. In the first part of November, we got quite a bit of snow (almost a foot!). I had several appointments before surgery, and wore my winter boots due to the snow.
I had to drive through some of the worst of the storm, passed the exact spot where the accident happened. I was terrified, and yet I knew I had to do it. I quoted Philippines 4:13 a lot, as well as a C.S. Lewis quote I’ll share in the quote section.
Throughout my appointments, people would comment on my snow boots; how they were overkill and it was too early for them. Driving out of the snowbelt, I would find green/brown grass and if any snow at all, only a dusting. The snowbelt is basically it’s own microclimate and life here can be drastically different when it comes to weather than even 15 minutes away.
I was able to get some cool photos, both when we had almost a foot, and when it had melted some. We are getting more snow this weekend. Winter starts early here and leaves later than many other places. I know many people don’t like winter, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Songs On Repeat:
Help is On The Way (Maybe Midnight) TobyMac
Giants In the Land- Grover Levy
Good God All Mighty- Crowder
Scripture and Quotes:
This Road We Take:
The past (almost) eleven months have been quite a journey for both Ben and I. Along this path, I’ve heard over and over again what a miracle I am and that most people don’t survive this. I’ve had medical staff tell me that God guided the doctor’s hands as they fought to save my life, and that He must have great plans for my life. People tell me I am strong, that I am a warrior. But the truth is my own strength was gone a long time ago.
This road has not been an easy one. It isn’t over with yet, and likely won’t be for awhile. Yet Ben and I have never walked this journey alone. God has always been with us. We’ve had friends and family with us every step of the way, and strangers who became friends. Even as long and as hard of a journey this has been, we’ve seen God move and impact many along this journey.
Sometimes we’ll face fear on our journey. I know I’ve had a lot of that lately. But facing your fear head on helps move the journey forward. And what would an adventure be without a little fear and danger along the way? All good stories have elements of fear and danger. In the end, it’s how we face it that matters.
Our journey may not be finished yet, but even when this part of life’s journey is over with, our lives will never be the same. How could it be, after so much has happened and so much has changed? Yet our faith has grown stronger through all of this.
I don’t know where this journey will take us next. But what I do know is I serve a God I can trust. A Good Father, a personable Savior, who looks after His children. And I know that His plan is greater than any I could ever possibly attempt. Come what may, I know I’ve never been alone on this road, and I never will be. None of us are. He waits for those who do not know Him, like a shepherd looking for his lost sheep, and walks with us, no matter how long and perilous the road may be. One day, He will call me home, but for now, we’ll keeping walking down this road called life.
The past couple of weeks have been packed with appointments. This week is another very full week, but I wanted to try to get in at least a blog post. A word of warning, it will be a longer post.
One of those appointments was for Ben with the University of Michigan. They’ve started him on a new medication, which causes drowsiness. Ben’s primary doctor also started him on some new meds. His health has continued to change over the last few months. We’ve gotten a few answers, but those answers have led to more confusion, questions and concerns than anything. At some point he will be going to have a nerve biopsy to hopefully find more answers, but we are not sure when.
In physical therapy, I’ve continued to do the independent sessions. Occupational therapy is really about the day to day things I do, such as laundry, pouring liquids from one dish to another, and gripping things with my hand. I have weights and strengthening equipment at home I use sometimes as well to help strengthen my hands.
With surgery coming up, I’m hoping I won’t lose much strength during the time I can’t do much. I am trying to build as much strength as I can before the operation in November, but my left side is still pretty weak. I have a come a long way since the accident, but I still notice differences in what I can do, especially when it comes to swinging or lifting my left leg or trying to turn my left wrist over. I am able to compensate in many ways, such as using my hands to move my left leg when I need to swing it over a chair, or using my arm to turn my wrist when I need to pour something, or squeeze a sauce out of a bottle such as ketchup or barbecue sauce. It feels strange to turn most of my arm over just to get some ketchup for a meal, or use my hands to move my leg over a chair, but it allows me to be more independent.
With the upcoming surgery, I will be limited on what I can lift for at least 2 to 6 weeks. I am hoping this won’t be a setback for strengthening my left side. As I mentioned before, this surgery is to fix some of the internal damage caused by the accident. I am hoping it will be a fast recovery, but a lot depends on whether they can do robotic surgery or have to do more in-depth surgery.
Recharging
As an introvert, I’ve always needed alone time to recharge. It has been really hard to get that time with so many appointments, and I often find myself feeling exhausted and run down when we have so much back to back. We’ve really tried to make it a point to schedule down time. I know that may not make sense to some people, but for me, scheduling down time allows me much needed time to relax and recharge. Without it, my schedule gets so packed, I barely have a moment to breath.
The past couple of weeks, it has been really hard to get much down time in. Some days, we have had three, four or even five appointments on the same day, all back to back with very little time in between, so it’s been go-go-go. This has meant almost no hiking or walks for me, and only brief stops to parks to try to breath a little and take some time to get photos.
We are hoping this will change soon schedule-wise, but are also working on adding some down-time specifically into the schedule to help provide time to rest and recharge. Ben and I both really time to process everything that has happened this year, and you can’t really do that when it’s constant businesses. Everyone processes trauma differently, and for the two of us, we need time away from the craziness of life to try to deal with everything that this year has brought to us.
A few photos from our yard and brief stops at parks:
Photos from the only couple of hikes I’ve been able to do in the last couple of weeks: Grass River Natural Area, and Hartwick Pines
Books I’m reading or recently read
I’ve always been an avid reader, and sometimes people ask me what’s on my reading list, so I’m going to try adding in this section at least once or twice a month. I tend to read multiple books at once, reading parts of one then going to another before I’ve finished that one, and back to the first until it’s done.
Atomic Habits, by James Clear
Redeeming Love, by Francine Rivers
Mistaken Identity, by Don Van Ryn , Susie Van Ryn , Colleen Cerak , Whitney Cerak , Newell Cerak
Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess: 5 Simple, Scientifically Proven Steps to Reduce Anxiety, Stress, and Toxic Thinking, by Dr. Caroline Leaf
Captivating, by Stasi Eldredge
Cooking
I’ve never enjoyed cooking very much. In our family, Ben does the most of the cooking, including making the dogs food. One of our dogs has a lot of allergies, so we started making their food a few months ago. Occupational therapy has encouraged me to do more cooking, in part because when you cook, you use your hands a lot and this will help strengthen and increase the mobility of my hands. I tried cooking the dogs food for the first time over the last couple of weeks, and they enjoyed it so much, one of them came to get me the next time Ben cooked it for them. In the past when I would cook, they would sit by the stove and whine and paw at me because I have a tendency to burn things and mess up recipes, so it made me feel good to know they actually liked what I made this time.
We also do canning every year. We have a few of our own grapes, but thanks to Ben’s mom, we were able to get some more and canned some grape juice. Thanks to my mom, we were also able to get some carrots canned up as well. We also found a reusable microwavable popcorn bag at one of the local Farmer’s Markets. A few pictures from our cooking and canning adventures:
Scripture and Quotes from the last couple of weeks:
Songs on Repeat:
Goodness of God- Bethel Music
My Life Be Like- Grits
Rescue, Lauren Daigle
Closing Thoughts:
The past couple of weeks have been so packed. I hope to get some time to hike in the next week or two, before I go in for surgery. Life has brought us a lot to deal with this year. But our faith has helped us greatly, and been strengthened through this process. We’ve also been on the receiving in of so much love and care from family and friends. I wanted to share a photo of this beautiful quilt a friend made for me. It is pretty amazing!
Life isn’t always easy, but as Romans 8:28 says, God is working all things together for our good, and we trust Him, even in the hard times.
This week, I was able to get up to 2 miles in about eleven minutes on the indoor bike. To my athlete friends, this may not seem like much, but it was a new record for me since the accident and something to celebrate. I haven’t added more weight since last week (I’m still at 40-75 lbs) but am trying to do more repetitions with each machine I use.
I have been trying to walk at least a mile a day. This week, I made it out to Hartwick Pines after an appointment, as well as a marina in Petoskey and Deadman’s Hill. I’ve really made it a goal to hike somewhere after every appointment I have, and most of the time, I do. This week was packed with appointments, but I managed to squeeze in a few hikes.
Surgery Update:
It looks like I will be having surgery in early November to repair some of the internal damage from the accident. My abdominal wall was nearly destroyed in the accident, and my liver and colon had to be stitched, so there is still some work to do. Hopefully the surgery will go well, and recovery should be about 2 to 3 weeks.
Adventures This Week:
A gallery of some of the photos from this week, taken at Hartwick Pines, Deadman’s Hill, a Marina near Petoskey, and a few other places in North-West Lower Michigan:
Fall is in the air!
When I took photos this past week, we weren’t in full color yet but getting close. I love this time of year! The colors are so bright and cheery! A gallery of color:
Not All Sunshine and Rainbows
I try hard to keep a positive attitude about things, but this doesn’t mean I don’t have bad days. This was a week with several days where I was late for appointments because it was just one thing after another. I overslept one day, got stuck behind a construction vehicle another day, and stepped in dog poop a couple of times on my way to places. I always leave extra time, but it just wasn’t enough some days.
I also discovered I can’t use a video-teller or drive-up ATM machine, at least not with my left wrist. It just won’t turn over enough. I have a hard time in drive-throughs too, such as at fast food places. I have moments when I get really frustrated, but I try to allow myself to feel the frustration and work through it. I’m learning to live with a new normal. Hopefully I will get more and more of my left side back , but there are no guarantees, and when you’ve lived certain ways most of your life, it takes time to adjust to something different.
We also spent part of an afternoon in the emergency room again for Ben. He has a toe with what the doctor says is a blood blister. It looks very much like it did the last time it developed an infection, so we are keeping a close eye on it. With Ben’s Peripheral Neuropathy, he checks his feet regularly anyways as he has no feeling in them.
Today (October 10) is also the birthday of my sister-in-law, Morgan who passed away several years ago. I wrote about that loss, as well as several others here:
Today is both a sad and happy day, bittersweet. Sad that we have had all of this time without her, but happy that she is living her forever in Heaven. Happy Birthday in Heaven Morgan!
If I’ve learned anything in my lifetime so far, it’s this; even in loss and in pain, there is happiness and joy. Even in the darkest of moments, there is light. My faith plays a big roll in getting me through all of the things I’ve been through. It’s knowing that I will see loved ones again, knowing that anything that happens to me here on earth is just a blink of an eye, that helps me get through even the toughest of days. Philippians 4:13 has stood out to me time and time again during this journey, and is something I keep going back to when life gets really tough.
Songs on Repeat:
I’ve always loved music. Throughout the week, I often find myself playing certain songs on repeat. This varies by week, although I have a few that I tend to play often. This week’s songs include:
Goodness of God- Bethel Music
Graves Into Gardens- Brandon Lake/ Elevation Worship
The Stand- Hillsong
Say I Won’t – MercyMe
Life has this way of throwing unexpected curves at us. Sometimes those curves take us to unexpected places. Sometimes we find ourselves in the most amazing moments, and in the next breath, in the most horrific moments. Life may not be all sunshine and rainbows. But it is still good.
Independent Physical therapy feels like the same routine each week, but it is helping me to get stronger and I try to mix up which machine I’m using when to keep it from getting boring. I’m still at 40-75 lbs. It took me quite awhile to get up to even 30-50 lbs, so I expect it will take a bit to be able to lift more weight. Before the accident, I hadn’t done weight lifting with my legs and back for a while, so it’s hard to say how much I’ve improved. But with my arms, I could lift at least 50 pounds when it came to everyday life activities like lifting apple crates and dog food bags. Right now, I’m lifting about 40 lbs, so I’m getting back to where I was. It just takes time. My left side is still weaker, and I have a hard time using my wrist fully because it doesn’t turn all the way and it’s painful to grip some things.
I don’t really have a specific goal in mind to be able to lift. We don’t know if my left side will ever work fully the way it didn’t before the accident. It likely won’t, but I’m learning to compensate and find ways around it so I can still do as much as possible like I did before. I’m trying to walk at least a mile every day. This is still a ways from the 3-4 miles I was walking before the accident, but I’m trying to slowly increase this over time. I have to remind myself sometimes a mile is a lot further than the few steps I was able to take when I started walking again back in February. I may not be exactly where I want to be, but when you have injuries to the extent I did, it takes awhile to come back from it. Up to two years is the general timeline I’ve been given from most of my doctors before I will be mostly healed and as back to normal as possible. I’ve always been one to set goals and strive to reach them, so I have to remind myself of this when I am wanting to be back to normal faster than my body is ready.
I’m noticing less and less discomfort when I walk. Standing is still tough. Over time, I’ve been able to increase how long I can stand. I couldn’t stand for more than a few seconds starting out, then increased it to a few minutes, and now I can stand for at least 15-20 minutes before the pain really starts to set in. I thought that most of the weakness in my legs was gone, until my husband and I took part of a day to get some canning done, and I found being on my legs off and on for several hours brought the weakness back. My legs were shaking and felt as though they weren’t going to hold me, something I hadn’t experienced since I’ve built my stamina for standing longer. By last night, I had nerve pain in my hip and legs, something else I hadn’t had in awhile. It was a reminder that I’ve come a long way, but physically I still have more limits than I did before.
Canning
My husband and I always try to can at least a little bit each year. We often have help from family members too; many hands make light work! This weekend, Ben and I tackled tomatoes. I am used to standing for most of the time it takes to can something, but my body just won’t allow it anymore. We have a red stool that I’m able to sit on for at least part of canning, so that helped a little bit.
Our black lab supervised and our Catahoula did cleanup duty, waiting for any scraps that would fall off the table or stove on to the floor. He LOVES tomatoes, really almost any fruit or veggie, but doesn’t get tomatoes normally because dogs aren’t supposed to have them. From everything we researched, the very small amount he got shouldn’t hurt him.
A few photos from our weekend project:
Birthday Celebrations
We also celebrated my birthday this week. Every year, I try to bring in my birthday with the sunrise and end my birthday with the sunset. I wasn’t able to get the greatest photos of the sunrise, but the sunset was pretty cool. My ankle has been swelling some, so rather than trying to hike on my birthday, we went on a drive. Photos are below.
Fall
Just three photos for this section. I know the old wives tale says these caterpillars predict winter. I’m not really sure what this one says about winter, but we’ve heard a lot of people saying it is going to be a rough one, and some of the nature signs are pointing to this as well. Winter is one of my favorite seasons. I do have some anxiety about driving in the snow after the accident, but am hoping that will get better with practice once the snow actually does come.
Christmas is my favorite holiday, and the Christmas season has always been very special to me. Last year, we celebrated Christmas in the hospital. It was a very special Christmas that I wrote about here: https://talesfromnorthcountry.com/2021/01/01/a-christmas-to-remember/ One thing I really missed though was the traditions we have at home for celebrating. We never got to finish decorating our Christmas tree. Ben had the idea of putting it up slowly, adding ornaments as we counted down the days until Christmas to extend the special day and the excitement of decorations, so we never finished getting everything up.
We celebrated Christmas in March, and took awhile putting our tree down. There was a sadness with it, a reminder of what had been lost even with all that had been gained. When we finally got everything off the tree (it’s artificial) there was again sadness and it felt so empty. We had noticed Fall lights and decorations in the store, and decided to try this instead. We decorated our tree for fall, and will redecorate it at Christmas time. It is a reminder that even when things are really hard and dark, there is still light, brightness, and good in the world.
-I’m going to skip quotes and songs for this week. This is getting pretty long. Until next time
This is going to be a longer post this week, so I’ll try to keep this section brief. This week, I continued with Independent Physical Therapy. I’ve up to 75 pounds with parts of the exercises I do, and 40 pounds minimum for most things. This is a long way from the 1 pound limit I had with my wrists after the accident! I continue to work on building strength, especially in my left side.
I was also able to attend a class at Grass River Natural Area. We did a short walk, and learned how to collect seeds from Native plants. It was a great class, and I learned a lot. My left side was sore afterwards, but it was worth it, and very nice to be able to take another class.
Most days I am able to walk close to a mile. My goal is to get up to at least 3-4 miles a day. Right now, pain and weakness stops me from going further but it gets better each week.
Another loss
This week, we lost my Aunt Esther, my mom’s sister. Loss seems to be so very much a part of life. C.S. Lewis in ‘The Four Loves’ says:
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
C.S. Lewis ‘The Four Loves’
Between 2003 and 2010, there were at least 11 family and friends that passed away. We also lost my dog Cora and my brothers’ dog Bear within a couple of weeks of each other. Losing a dog may not seem like much of a big deal if you’ve never owned one, but they become family and those who have owned dogs or other pets will likely understand that loss. From 2013-2017, we lost at least 11 more family members and another dog we’d loved for many years. Since 2020, we have had at least six family and friends pass away, my husband and I were in a serious car accident, and we’ve dealt with everything the pandemic has brought about.
I say all of this not because I want people to feel sorry for us. I don’t. In fact, I hesitate to even say anything when someone I know passes away anymore or something bad happens because it feels so surreal, so unbelievable. I need to process all of this, and one of the best ways I can do that is to write it out. I could go back further, where there were more losses as well, but right now, I’m processing the past 18 years or so. So very much has happened. Some positive, but a lot of really hard difficult things too.
My mom comes from a family of 14 kids, the oldest died shortly after birth. Most of her siblings had children and many of them have children so it’s a big family. My dad comes from a smaller family, but the cousins on his side of the family are close, so we have relationships with family we might not have had otherwise. With that comes loving and dying. The more people you know, the more you have a chance of losing someone you love and care about. Death is as much of a part of life as living is. Loss is a part of the world we live in, like it or not.
When you’ve lost as much as I have, when you’ve been through one thing after another, it becomes normal, even if it’s not. Sometimes I feel like I’m just waiting for the next loss to happen, for the next bad thing to take place. I’m not just talking about all the death, I’m talking about the loss of our “normal” lives with the pandemic, the loss of the use of my left side as I “normally” would, and the loss of a year of my life that I will never get back.
And yet. I feel as though two simple words hang in the air despite everything we’ve been through. They give us hope. And yet, we will see many of our loved ones again. And yet, there is hope for the future. And yet, despite everything we’ve been through, all of the loss and pain, there is still so much good in the world. And yet, despite our hearts breaking over and over again, there is joy. And yet, when it seemed as though all the world was ending, Jesus came to save it. And yet.
Death isn’t the end. No matter how much death and loss we experience in our lifetime, no matter how much loss I experience myself, it is not the end. Praise be to God for this! And yet, death does not win. Even in great loss, we have this hope.
Ben and our Pup
Ben continues to deal with his peripheral neuropathy and all the issues it brings with it. His feet have been swollen and painful a lot this month, and it has spread up to his legs and into his hands. He has also had some problems with blood pressure and blood sugar levels in the last month or so, which he hasn’t had before. We are working with his primary doctor and the team at the University of Michigan to try to figure everything out.
We’ve also been dealing with our dog Wesley having an ear infection. He’s had one for well over a year, off and on getting worse. We’ve been to the vet many times, changed his diet, had him tested for allergies, and tried lots of medication, including sending a sample to Michigan State to get a specialty made antibiotic for him, but his ear infection just doesn’t want to giv
