Love Your Life!!!

Getting Back to Normal

Tom & me in Sienna, Italy, Sept. 2007

It has definitely been a rough couple of weeks here at Love Your Life, but I have also had a lot to be grateful for at the same time.  Here are just a few of the things that I am thankful for:

Tom got his staples taken out of his arm today, and is on the road to recovery.  We have been doing a lot of driving around lately, which makes me crazy, but after one more doctor’s appointment this afternoon, we should be getting back to “normal” after today.  Tom will have physical therapy a couple of times a week for awhile, but the clinic is fairly close to the house, so it shouldn’t be too problematic!

Next, I feel very lucky to have wonderful friends around me!  I am grateful to our friend Laura, who drove Tom’s car home from the airport when he wasn’t able to drive.  I am ridiculously indebted to our friend Kelly, who brought me doughnuts while Tom was in surgery, drove me to the airport to pick him up at 11:00 at night, and stocked our freezer with a ton of frozen veggies so that Tom would have something  to ice his arm with when he got home.  And I am also grateful to our friend Maggi, who lives in Massachusetts but sent us beautiful flowers to let us know that she was thinking of us. 

And, finally, I am so thankful that we are going on vacation in less than three weeks!!!!  This is the first time that I am mentioning it here, but I am turning the Big 4-0 next month, and quite awhile ago I decided to throw myself a birthday trip to Belize!!!  Recent events have forced us to change plans a bit, but, as a result, we get to go to Belize twice – next month and in March, 2010!!  It is a long story, but I am really happy with the way that everything worked out, and I am looking forward to getting some much needed relaxation in just a few short weeks!!!

Just one more thing -- I also believe that I should be able to get back to more regular posting now, which I am also very excited about!!!!

The love of my life

Me & Tom, New Year's Eve, Dec. 31, 2008.  Photo courtesy of our friend Kelly!

I haven't posted in well over a week now.  I haven't had the energy or the desire to write recently, and I don’t really feel like it today either, but I was afraid that if I didn’t post soon, I might just let the posting slip away all together, and I didn’t want that to happen.

My last post mentioned that we were having a rough time of it here at Love Your Life.  Unfortunately, things got significantly worse after that.  I will spare you the gory details, but Tom went to Colorado last weekend, and he was injured while he was there and required immediate, extensive surgery on his arm.  I was stuck here in NC, going out of my mind with worry.  It is extremely difficult to be so far away from someone you love when they are hurt.  I wasn’t getting a lot of updates on his condition, which made things even worse.  It is hard to put into words the various emotions and thoughts that were running through me during the time that he was gone.

But now he is safely back home with me, and, while it is going to take a good bit of time for him to heal, we believe that he will in fact be back to 100% eventually.  I know that it is going to be a frustrating couple of months for both of us, but I know that we can handle it!

Even though I haven’t felt like writing, I have so many things to appreciate today.  Tom is back, and he is going to be ok.  Life will be hard for awhile, but I think that this will actually make us stronger. This Sunday, February 15^th, will be the eighth anniversary of my move to North Carolina to be with Tom.  I will forever be grateful that I made that decision, and I today consider myself to be one of the luckiest people in the world. . . .

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!  Life is short, so get on out there and celebrate with the people that you love!!! :o)

Loving the process of life

Our former tree

We have been having a rough week here so far at Love Your Life!   On Monday, we had to have a giant tree removed from our backyard.   The beautiful tree had been struck by lightning awhile back, and was dying, and it needed to be removed before it fell on top of someone’s house!!  Part of the problem was that the tree was right the edge of our property line, so negotiations with neighbors were involved, which complicated matters.  Monday was finally the big day for removal , and although the tree came down without incident, it was amazingly expensive.

A not so great shot of the massive crane that was needed to do the job!       

On the same morning that the tree came down, our refrigerator died.  We had to pack all of our food into multiple coolers and move it all into the basement.  On just about any other day at this time of year, we could have stuck the food outside, but on Monday, it just happened to be 60 degrees in February!  Once the tree removers arrived, we had to head out to Lowe’s to order a new fridge, and we had to live for a day without one.

Of course, more money had to be spent, which was not pleasant.  When I think about how much money we spent in one day, it makes my head spin! 

This is a situation where it would have been SO easy for me to be negative about everything that happened on Monday.  So easy for me to be annoyed and upset, and easy for me to take a “why does this have to happen to us now” kind of attitude.   But I can truly say that loved the opportunity that Monday gave me to practice my appreciation skills!!!  Instead of being negative, I tried to remind myself of the wonderful privilege that I have in being a homeowner, and that occasionally these types of scenarios come with the territory – there’s just no getting around it sometimes.  And when I thought of the refrigerator dying, I thought about the six years in which it worked perfectly every day (it was already used when we bought it), and I was grateful for that. 

Monday helped me to focus on and appreciate the process of life.  Yes, there are times when clouds hide the face of the sun in your life, but even if you lose sight of it for a moment, it is important to remember that the sun is still there.  We can all learn to ride out the storms in our lives with as positive an attitude as possible and maybe even learn to enjoy the rain!