It’s been an emotionally devastating week. Every single day brought bad news and I’m feeling a bit shredded at the moment, which is why I decided to write a day early.
The worst of it is that Hudson, our only nephew and the boys’ only cousin, and Timmy and Brittany, are moving out of the state. This news came as an absolute shock that none of us were prepared for. It’s heartbreaking. We’ve had one amazing year with Hudson in our lives and we assumed we’d be able to consistently be in his life – for the rest of his life. Doing every holiday and birthday and special event and random thing – together, at every possible opportunity, because it was so incredible to finally have that nephew/cousin/grandson in our family. That one year was so awesome for us, but it’s a year he’ll never remember. I have a whole lot to say about this, but it’ll surely get me in trouble. So I’ll just leave it that we’re incredibly sad, and hurt. It’s a loss I’m not sure we, as the collective rest of the family, will ever fully recover from. (Which sounds really dramatic. But, that’s how we’re feeling about everything that was said/ignored and is happening this week.)
Anyway. I guess I’ll get to the rest of the distressing news as I reflect on everything else that happened this week!
We started Sunday morning at the Swan Park Craft Fair in Beaver Dam. I go with my parents every year and we usually make a day of it, but timing got a little off once Hudson’s birthday party was scheduled the same day. So Greg and the boys came along with me and spent the time walking around the park looking for Pokemon while I browsed the booths. Everyone seemed late to set up this year, and a lot fewer booths than last. Every year it gets smaller and less enticing, which is disappointing! I walked through most of it three times and didn’t buy anything. Also, I realized that craft fairs are not places I like to be at by myself. It’s much more fun going with my mom who likes all of the same things as me.
Next, we headed to Milwaukee for Hudson’s first birthday party. He doesn’t want to be held for our selfies anymore, so I had to get on the floor with him.
He really liked the car we gave him!
So cute. I’m going to miss him so much. š š š I didn’t know about the moving yet on Sunday, otherwise I would have taken a zillion pictures.
It was a really beautiful day and they have a huge front porch in the shade with a lake breeze. We all spent most of the party outside. All of their friends – who also have babies! – were there too. I was thinking how amazingly blessed they are to have the same friends in their lives for so many years, plus the incredible benefit of raising kids at the same stages. It just got me thinking about the friends Greg and I lost when we lived in Minnesota and we had Caden years and years before those couples even considered having kids. And how we honestly never really got it back. I made mom friends once Caden started school, but we’ve never made couple friends. And without that pre-kid friendship foundation, it’s so much harder to stay in touch with people, even friends that lives in the same town. I don’t know. Summer is a very lonely and stressful time for me. I wish things were different and I don’t know how to change them, not when other people aren’t feeling the same way. Anyway. It was a very nice party. Hudson is so loved.
Monday was the start of a very, very busy week. We started our daily morning walks with Annie, which I’m hoping to keep up every single day. I let the boys play Pokemon Go on my phone to distract them, and Annie and I get some exercise before it gets too hot. After the walk I had an appointment to get my toe looked at. She agreed that yes, it looked like an infection. She put me on an antibiotic and I have a follow up appointment with a podiatrist next Monday. I made the mistake of not letting the boys bring tablets to that appointment and they were being so ridiculously obnoxious. It could be argued that they should just be able to behave without a screen in front of them, but yeah – I’m never doing it again without the screens.
The rest of the day was me trying to work, trying to do food prep, trying to listen to an audiobook and failing. The boys and their friends were running through the house nonstop and I had to keep pulling the phone out of my pocket to push pause every two minutes. I know this is just summer life and I have to get used to it. But it’s so frustrating sometimes!! I also spent two hours that afternoon making jalapeno popper chicken and a peach crumble that pretty much took up all my food making energy for the entire week. I just don’t have it in me to make real meals by 5 every day. Sooo much work.
I finished the night at the dog park while Greg took the boys to the pool. All in all, it felt like the day lasted a hundred hours. It wasn’t a bad day, but it zapped me. It also made me really scared about the next 50 plus days of summer that are bound to be exactly the same.
On Tuesday I was trying to get the boys registered for school, but there were all kinds of glitches in the system. I finally gave up for awhile, but not after much frustration! I was trying to catch up with a lot of things online. I feel like those kinds of mornings are necessary, but I also think I’m going to need to stop banning myself from having them so often because I’m not getting any work done!
In the afternoon I had a haircut. I brought the boys and Annie to my mom’s for an hour and a half so I didn’t have to deal with them sitting there watching me. My hair looks pretty much the same. I don’t usually get haircuts in summer because I just wear it up all the time in the heat, but it wasn’t curling any more when I wanted it to, so I figured a trim was in order. I did a fast grocery run before getting them and dropping them off at Greg’s parents’ and then rushed back home for our at home date night. Greg picked up a pizza from Salvatore’s in Sun Prairie. They have (had…) a $12 take out special every Tuesday that we’ve been trying to take advantage of for like six months. It FINALLY worked out that we could do it. So delicious.
About an hour or two after Greg was walking around waiting for the pizza, about a block away there was a horrific gas leak and explosion in Sun Prairie. It was devastating for the community, especially because a man died in the fire. Parts of the city – including Salvatore’s – are still deemed unsafe to return to, four days later. The whole thing was so crazy and sad.
After the boys got back home I quickly repotted some hens and chicks Cindy gave me from her abundant plants. I found the perfect planter at Hobby Lobby last week. I’ve actually moved all my indoor plants outside for the summer. I think the lemon tree is much happier! I finally have some new leaves growing and the lemons seem to be growing faster than they did in the house. My tall jade plant from Cedarburg is not so happy. I need to stake it, I think.
On Wednesday morning I had a follow up appointment with my surgeon about my ankle. It ended up being a very long morning of just waiting around. Waiting to get checked into the hospital, waiting for the x-ray, waiting to go back for my appointment, and then a full 45 minutes of waiting in the room. Thank goodness for tablets that day! Even with them, Caden started demanding we just leave after half an hour. It was definitely stressful, especially since I was staring at my x-ray the entire time, worrying about how it looked worse than it did the last time two months ago.
After a very brief visit, the surgeon said that I’m healing at the pace he would expect. My range of motion is just about back to normal in three directions. Turning my foot outward is still hard because of the sprain recovery, which is still there four months later. Since the hardware is not bothering me, it should be able to stay in. Many people get it removed by choice, but it’s not what the doctors would prefer. I’m totally fine keeping mine in! He said that my lower breaks look really good, but the top one still has a gap. He wants to see me at the one year mark and if it’s still open like that, I’ll need to have another surgery to take bone from somewhere else to fill it in, and probably switch to a shorter plate (and have all those screw sized holes up and down my bone?!). This was NOT news I was expecting to hear. The more I thought about it, the more upset I was getting. I was scheduled for that appointment at the desk in January, but Greg told me I really better call back and see if I could get it scheduled in December instead. Because we definitely hit our deductible for the year in February and if I have to have another surgery it sure would be nice if it were free!! Not happening in January when we’d start the year over again with massive hospital bills. It was fine to reschedule, but the appointment is now only nine months after the injury, not really even close to the one year mark! Three months left to prove it’s filling in.
Anyway, I don’t want this to ruin my life, but I greatly dislike the possibility of another surgery happening in six months. Right before Christmas, no less. Presumably the recovery would be a lot shorter, but there would still be recovery! It’s just hard to wrap my mind around right now and be okay with it. But…it is what it is. I need to get better. Fully better. I’m so tired of feeling like half a person, never feeling comfortable or confident in even the simplest of daily activities. I want to go back to a life where I don’t have to factor my potential ankle pain into every decision I make. It SUCKS.
Anyway, on Wednesday evening I met Cindy at one of our favorite stores, Twisted Sister, for a “Sip and Savor” event. They were offering samples of weight loss coffees and drinks to try out while you shopped. I actually thought the coffee tasted pretty good, but it gave me the most horrible aftertaste that I still couldn’t get rid of a day later. So, not for me, unfortunately! We weren’t there too long, but it was fun to do something for me. Afterward I got some quick tacos for dinner and then spent like two hours wandering around Walmart, savoring my kid-free shopping time!
Thursday was more of the same. We actually went on a much longer walk that legitimately felt like a workout to me. I was proud of myself for powering through, even though it meant being pretty sore the rest of the day. I don’t think I could handle those longer walks every morning, but maybe twice a week for now. It helped we left at 6:30, before it got hot.
I tried to work some more in the morning. It’s been hard with the whole Hudson moving away thing hanging over everything I’ve done this week. It’s been so sad and confusing and heartbreaking. It’s hard to get motivated for anything when you’re crying half the day and just feeling emotionally wrecked. I tried to cheer myself up with a big java chip frappuccino. The mix made so much that I shared with the boys. Now they think they love coffee and Caden keeps asking me if he can use my k-cups. I suppose I should just let him and maybe he’ll realize actual coffee tastes a whole lot different than a powdered mix whipped up with mocha flavored cold brew!
Soon after I started working, I got some news that made me realize I needed to do a mega house cleaning and basically launder every item in our house. It was fine, not a big deal, but definitely not how I planned on spending my day, madly cleaning every room and doing fifty loads of laundry.
Caden had a playdate in the afternoon, so even though I was dead tired and not really in the mood, Shepard and I went to Madison for a few errands. It’s apparently custom order season because I’ve gotten a lot this week. Which often means needing to hunt down new fabrics or accessories. So we went to Joann’s and then stopped at Target. It really was an unnecessary trip that didn’t need to happen as immediately as I made it out to be. But Caden is the one who often makes shopping miserable and I had to take advantage of a daytime trip without him!
I worked late and finally finished up a batch of dolls. This morning I did all the photographing and listing. I’ve been trying all day to actually accomplish something more than that and it’s just not happening. Shepard ended up going to a friend’s for the bulk of the day and Caden was outside with his friend Willow all day, so I really have no excuse. I just haven’t been able to focus at all. It turned out to be a mistake, but for a brief time this morning I thought I was being blacklisted by a major prim pattern maker that I ADORE. She’s extremely popular and often has problems with copying, reselling, or not giving credit for her designs. When I realized I had been removed from her many facebook groups I started freaking out that I inadvertently did something to offend her and I just could not afford to have some sort of professional disaster on top of everything else that’s happened this week. But – it’s been resolved. WHEW.
So that’s been my week. I’m feeling pretty discouraged by everything. Summer is just so hard. I’m not my best mom self when my kids are around me 24/7. I’ve had ZERO motivation for making dinner in the evenings. And work! I can’t work! I can’t stand being interrupted every five minutes and I constantly feel flustered and stressed out, with my attention going in twenty different directions at once. I miss my friends and I kind of wonder if I really even have friends anymore. Nobody’s exactly asking ME to hang out with them either. I feel so disorganized and exhausted and alone. I want to enjoy summer and the freedom we all have together, but this week was just so busy with all those random appointments. Next week is completely filled up too. I’ve never had so many things on the calendar so many days in a row! EVER! It’s overwhelming.
Anyway. Just to actually reflect on what I wanted to do this week – make lists – it hasn’t happened yet. I DID make the “What can I do to earn a check?” list. But still no go on the dog park list or the summer bucket list list. I haven’t written out a list of things I want to do for myself either, but I have been looking around. I did buy a ticket for the one time Rise documentary about Rachel Hollis that I really wanted to go to. I was hoping to find someone to go with me, but had no idea who to ask, so I just went ahead and bought a single ticket. I also wrote a few other nighttime possibilities for things I might do.
Okay, time to sign off on this super long and depressing post! We’re about to go out to dinner with Greg’s parents and cousin who is town for the wedding we’re going to tomorrow. We have a very busy weekend ahead!
