Reminder for Me

I am awesome.

I am strong.

I am powerful.

I am amazing.

I have worth.

If I say it often enough, it’ll come true, right?

Disgruntled

I hate not feeling wanted. And today, even though I have some wonderful and exciting news that I can’t share quite yet, two things happened today that crushed the happiness. I knew they were both coming. And I can’t really go into the details….but it’s disappointing. Draining. Soul crushing even.

But instead of dwelling on that, I want to focus on the happy.

The beautiful weather we had this weekend. Including on Friday when we managed to get home right before this happened:

Snuggling with a 3 month old baby and being content with having a single child.

The AMAZING 70 degree day on Saturday and playing at the park after enjoying the Alpenrose Dairy Easter Egg hunt aftermath (we parked the car after the gun went off to start….probably about 10 minutes later it was over. If that.

Putting makeup on to celebrate Easter:

The Easter celebration I spent with family yesterday, Ryan included. It was so wonderful seeing him interacting with the conversation. Chasing Avi around with an egg. *sigh* It was very happy.

How was your Easter?

iHeart Faces – Wind

On days that I’m at home and the weather is nice, Avi and I like to walk to go get the mail. It’s always a fun walk since there is a wetlands between our apartment building and the rest of the complex. There are always ducks and usually a pair of geese swimming around. We sit and watch them for a bit before continuing on. After we get the mail, we stop by the office to visit “the ladies” and get a cookie. Avi adores the girls that work in the office and they always love to see her too. Then on the way home, we usually stop for a bit at the little park.

It takes no more than half an hour out of my day and brings so much joy to us both.

This little girl is the reason for so many of the things I do.

Visit iHeart Faces for more wind images.

Another Weekend Gone

This weekend was a good one. Ever since Ryan’s stroke, I’ve been working Mon-Wed at my outside of the house job. The good part is this means I have (technically) a four day weekend! Granted, I’m always doing other work, but I can schedule myself around the other things.

Last Wednesday was a horrible day. Health issues with my mom that were (and are) scary on top of the usual, including debt collectors for a hospital bill from November we haven’t even received yet only to discover that they hadn’t even billed insurance yet (don’t know why we fill out all that paperwork….) and so many little things. Just overwhelming.

But my community? They are amazing. I could not be doing any of this without them for sure. Thursday was quickly a much better day. Wednesday after talking to the hospital where we spent 14 hours at, I realized that we still hadn’t received a letter or bill from the rehab center. Worried about creditors, I called my main contact there and left a message. She called Thursday morning. We owed nothing. Zero. Our insurance covered every single penny of the bill for the almost 4 weeks at the rehab center.

I was shocked. Overjoyed. We now only have one large bill to deal with, for which we are setting up assistance for so we can, you know, eat while we pay it off. We will not have to go bankrupt. Won’t have to move or sell a kidney or anything. We are blessed.

We spent most of Friday like this:

Reconnecting. Bonding. Loving.

Saturday I was able to have several delicious hours to myself. Avi got to play at the Children’s Museum with her grandmas and I got to go horseback riding. My body is STILL aching in that fantastic way after a good workout. The weather was perfect. I hope to be able to go again on Thursday.
Then on Sunday I got another couple of hours by myself. My dear friend Kim came over to watch the baby and I went to a coffee shop to sit down and do the writings I needed to do. It was lovely not having a two year old biting at my ankles the whole time. Then came home to prepare for a takeover – my friend brought her 14 month old over so they could have a date night.
Let me tell you…..never again at bed time. Ever. I have so much love to you parents that have more than one! Seriously, guarantees our decision that one is the right amount for us! Course, it would probably be easier if it was a constant thing to work with, but yeah….this was crazy. And Lily is SUCH a good baby too. Overall, an interesting evening but survived.

And now, it’s Monday again. The weeks keep flying by. My cousin gets married this weekend. I’m not the photographer (thank goodness) but you can bet I’ll have my camera with me! At least, if I can make it through another week….

Photographer Friends

Last night, I was invited to a Portland Photographer get together and oh man, am I so glad that my mom was able to hang out with the family last night so I could go!  I had a BLAST!

I love Portland. And if you want a rundown, visit my photography blog to check out the rockstars I met!