Its possible this week has been one of the biggest weeks in the history of weeks, and its only Wednesday.

Ok, this is obviously a lie. Surgery week was bigger. But this is surgeversary week, so thats part of this weeks dynamic, too!

The week has been loaded with appointments. Commitments. Activities. Phone calls. Forms. School stuff to remember. Its been loaded with memories, good and bad, and a LOT of physical body memory that is really fighting against me. My body is just itching to have a panic attack, I can feel it most every evening. Add on top of all these life things some extra emotional running around that is pulling hard on my already exhausted brain and heart. I’m functioning, and I’m ok, but I’m definitely not doing great. And there is still more to come.

I had plans for a pretty cute post to be up this afternoon, after some appointments, but I am WAY too overwhelmed to write it all out this afternoon. Hopefully tomorrow, I’ll have a bit more headspace for it. After my morning appointment. Yet another appointment.

Its going to slow down soon. Its just this week. I know more will come up, but the days of constant “one on top of the other” will soon be done. Aaaaany minute now.

Today is the day that marks fourteen years of marriage for Brady and I. Fourteen is a lot of years, but in the same breath, it really isn’t. We are incredibly grateful we are able to still be together after so much change.

It would be foolish to think things haven’t changed in our marriage in the last two years. Some roles have moved around. Some things are more difficult. Change is always a challenge. But what I can say with confidence is that we are better. Our marriage is better. We are a stronger unit than before, and for that, I praise the Lord.

This last year of marriage has been one of the craziest. It wasn’t surgery year, and don’t get me wrong, that was a big one. The biggest in just about every way. But this last year, we settled into our changes a bit more, and actually lived. We’ve made some big life changes, which have included some unpopular decisions, and our circle has shrunk a little. But our true village of people have not faltered, and we are eternally grateful for that and them.

There are no regrets here. None. Zero.

In the midst of everything we’ve gone through, I wouldn’t change where we are.

I love you, beautiful Brady. Thank you for spending these years with me. Here’s to the next 58, because, you promised.

Man alive, its already been a really big morning! Mostly good, some tricky, and just really FULL in general! Here’s the breakdown!

Kids got up and had breakfast. Sad broken granola bar cereal was still a win!

Got kids out the door, with appropriate skates and helmets for whoever needed. No one cried, even.

Invited Cher over for coffee while the layer of ice melted off her car in the garage.

Cher left for S’toon, and I tried (unsuccessfully) to move the bus into the garage so it could melt off as well. Couldn’t see out the window, therefore couldn’t make it happen.

Ran van forever.

Loaded Wavy into the van, wiping out on the ice in the process.

Drove to Warman and picked Brady up. Wiped out on the ice yet again.

We picked up our glasses finally and got them fitted and tweaked to perfection.

Got blood drawn. Picked up coffee and took Brady back to work.

Got home and got Wavy inside without wiping out. Heyooo! Got inside and out of jackets just in time to get a call from the school.

Loaded Wavy back up in the van, and retrieved a very pale Dekker from school.

Got home, unloaded, unbundled, and got Wavy some food while Dekker got into cozy clothes.

Made Dekker a teeny lunch before he abandoned us for a rest.

Medicated, humidified, and tucked Dekker in.

Tucked Wavy in.

Aaaaand then it was noon!

Wrote a few more important emails to organize some things, and had a phone interview.

Is it bedtime yet orrrrr…? 🥱

Being a not especially confident cook, its hard for me when food doesn’t work out. I’ve gotten better at that in the past few years, thankfully, and my family is pretty forgiving. The only person who is mad at me when food flops is me.

I had a bit of a rough morning the other day, and rather than sit idly and pick my fingers to shreds, I made a couple batches of granola bars. Simple enough. I make them pretty regularly now so I’m quite familiar with them. I still use my recipe but I know the gist. I made up two pans of them and put them in the fridge to set.

I went on to neglect them for a couple of days before cutting them apart. This is not uncommon, and is completely acceptable. When I went to cut up the first pan, everything just crumbled.

Ugh. It was SO discouraging. I’d pick up each bar and it would just fall apart in my hands. It was SO maddening. So I hacked it up.

And I decided it would be cereal. Boom.

Yes, I was as unimpressed as I looked. Thankfully, the kids ate it for breakfast this morning and LOVED it. So there is no loss. My ego took a small hit, but it was a very small hit, and it was rectified quickly.

I’m very grateful for my family who so smoothly rolls with the punches. And if they punches are delicious homemade granola, it seems like a win after all.

Mmmmm! Doesn’t that sound SO nice?? I cannot wait for the treats and crocheting to happen outside in the sun when spring finally shows itself! Until then, however, I will be grateful for them wherever I can get them!

Yesterday carried some challenges, but my dear bestie brought me some yummy treats, and I enjoyed them in my bed with some true crime on in the background and my hook in hand.

Still have to find an outlet to sell these beautiful, luxurious blankets! Did I ever even show you guys my camping one??

Anyway. I have not lost the crocheting bug, if you were wondering.

After rest time, I got to blast this cute thing with sunshine. As if she isn’t sunshine enough already ☀️

Doesn’t she look so much like Brady here?! Man she’s cute!

While yesterday was quite challenging, I have much to be grateful for. Thank you, Lord, for all you’ve given me.

I’m sorry if this feels like a repeat from just the other day, but some things just feel important to record here, after the fact. Going through past photos and videos is stirring up a lot inside of me. You may or may not realize, but we are very close to the two year anniversary of Brady’s surgery. If the exterior is doing its job, I probably look like I have things decently together, but the insides are screaming.

Anyway…

The other day I shared a picture of Brady setting up the Christmas tree in 2020, where his foot was twisted and up on its side. The one I’m posting today hits me even harder in the feels.

This was from our very last family walk before everything changed.

It was from December 20th, 2020. Wavy was two, and insisted on walking rather than being in a sled. She walked so slow, because she was SO little. And that was perfect, because that was as fast as Brady could go. He moved SO slowly and was SO unstable. Maybe a person wouldn’t notice, but from this picture, we can see he’s already kind of swinging that right leg out to the side when he walked, because he couldn’t lift it effectively. His toe would drag and he would fall. It was absolutely awful. I hated this time so much. There was no calm before this storm. Or maybe this part was the storm, and the surgery was the resolve. That can’t be right. I don’t know. But I do know that this part was brutal. It was hard to watch.

Family walks have certainly changed.

But there is a lot less physical pain involved. Thank you Lord for getting us through All of these things.

I can’t wait for spring to come when we can MUCH more easily go for family walks again 💜

Apparently today is groundhog day. I won’t lie. I entirely missed the memo on that this year. Anyone else?? No one came home from school talking about it, so I just missed it. Until this morning, when I was educated. It went like this.

Me: Morning, Sol.
Sol: GROUNDHOG DAY.

So. That was that. Today is groundhog day. I’m going to be straight up with you and tell you I have no idea what the groundhog saw or didn’t see. One thing I read said he saw his shadow. Then I did the same google search with the word “Canada” in it, and it said it didn’t see its shadow. Come to find out, one fo the groundhogs that people keep an eye on actually died today. So who even knows. We know where we live. There is more winter to come. Is there ever not??

Wavy made a groundhog at preschool today. That was pretty cute.

That’s really all I can tell you about groundhog day. The entire month is positively slammed, and this particular event wasn’t even on my radar. What I can tell you about February so far is that yesterday, I drove the kids to school, remembered Laela’s show and tell, got Brady to a doctors appointment, got results, heard from his surgeon, got some important emails out of the way, got some paperwork in hand, got Laela to and from an audition, fed and watered everyone, and we fit in a few rounds of tile rummy with Cher 💜 It was a very productive, positive day, and there are so many more like it to come. February is a marathon for me. And once its done, the groundhog can do what it wants, because the days will be longer. The sun will be out more. Things will inevitably start to melt. Spring will be on its way.

I am ready.

Brady’s been working on some computer stuff recently. Its backlogged back before his surgery, and its a gigantic job. Sorting through pictures. Thousands upon thousands of pictures. However, its a little bit fun to go back over all the memories. Last nights batch of pictures were full of her as a bald little two year old, somehow rocking that buzzed look better than any other girl could.

Aaaaanyway. Brady found himself in December 2020, setting up for Christmas. We knew something was wrong at that point, but didn’t know what. He could hardly walk, but life had to keep moving forward! In this picture, he’s setting up our Christmas tree 🙂

And that looks great! Until you look a liiiiittle bit closer.

See that left foot, all curled up and weird? We never even noticed stuff like that at this point. But where normal people can feel when to shift their feet or just naturally how to gain more stability in how they stand, he couldn’t tell, and his feet would just roll. It was stuff like this that left him falling on the stairs or off the bumper of his work van.

I’m not sure what I’m getting at beyond the fact that it is just so bananas to look back at this stuff sometimes and see where we were and where we are now. Now, Brady wears shoes and a brace in the house absolutely at ALL times. Otherwise, he would still have stuff like this going on, only worse.

I am incredibly thankful for where we are now, and that we know what we know, and that Brady is will and thriving 💜 Thank you Lord for carrying us through one million miles of the darkest waters. We needed it, and we still do.