Ahhhh…the pool

Sitting by the pool right now watching Avery and Delaney swim their little hearts out. Delaney has become quite the little “jumping bean”.  She stands on the side and jumps right in looking all excited and proud.  Avery is an awesome swimmer, she puts me to shame.

It has been a very very fun week! Yesterday was fun, even through a huge rain storm that left us all soaked straight through. One second it was a light sprinkle, the next it was a total downpour with thunder, lightening and high winds! We were afraid Delaney was going to blow right off the boat that takes you from the Magic Kingdom to the parking lot! But even through all of that we were laughing and having a total blast!

Today is relax and regroup day! We did some laundry and are not just sitting poolside soaking up some vitamin D. (With sunblock of course.)

I love my CLAD+J!

Greetings From the Happiest Place on Earth!

Here’s hoping this picture posts! We arrived Wednesday and did Magic Kingdom. Thursday Animal Kingdom. Friday Epcot. Today more Magic Kingdom. I’m having a total blast!! I’ve been keeping a journal each day and will blog that all when I get bacck including food reviews and tips and whatnot so that I remember for the next time I come! But now I have to go check on my laundry because I may have yelled at a washing machine hog and I’m worried he is going to bleach my clothes! Xxoo

Quickie

Just wanted to drop a quick note to say hi and that I’m on the best vacation ever! Here with CLAD+J having a total
blast!

Any ideas of where we are having all this fun? Maybe I will have the energy to share tomorrow…right now I’m exhausted and must sleep!! Love and hugs!

(It seems the picture hint isn’t posting…sorry!!)

Vague-Blogging

I started to write a whole post about my current emotional state, which is a little iffy right now, but decided that just needs to be boxed up and brought back out at a later date (No, this has nothing to do with my ex.  Can’t really tell you what it is about, well, I could, but I’m not allowing myself too lol)

Why does it need boxed up??????  Because in 29 hours I leave for vacation.  29 short hours.  I cannot even begin to tell you how nice it is going to be to be away from it all. (Ok, I lie, I will miss some of the things I am away from)

I’m not going to tell you where I am going quite yet.  I can tell you it isn’t the typical February trip I’ve taken in the past.  There will be some similar parts, but for the most part this trip will be an entirely new experience for me!!  I will give you the hint that at some point during this trip my true inner dork is going to come flying out of me and have some seriously happy celebrations!!

I may be able to blog while I am going, I’m not really sure.  I will not have internet access, but may stop in to chat here and there from my phone (note to self, redownload wordpress app for your phone…that disappeared in the great phone reset).

Oh, who am I kidding.  Of course I will blog from my phone!! I can’t stay away from this blog 🙂

See y’all soon!!!  xxoo
 

It shouldn’t happen

The following is sensitive.  I have never warned that before.  But this blog has come a long way.  I have readers who are pregnant and need to know that this post is not comforting.  This is not a sunshine and rainbows kind of post.  Click away now.

 

 

Did you watch this past season of the Ral L Word??

Did you grow yourself a crush on Kacy??

Did you cheer them on as they tried to get pregnant?

Did you feel heartbreak for them when they weren’t successful and cheer them on in the months to follow?

Did you continue to follow them after the show ended?

Did you cheer with joy when they announced in August that they were pregnant!?!?

Did you follow their Facebook page and Blog obsessively following their pregnancy?

Did you wonder where they have been since December, the last time they updated either?

Did you lay in bed last night and see that they had updated their blog and were afraid to open it??

Cori and Kacy’s daughter Charlie was born too soon, on Christmas Eve.  I bawled my eyes out reading their story.  I felt every single emotion resurface.  This shouldn’t happen.  I was texting with Crush and I told her “I’m heartbroken for them.  It is so unfair that this happens.  No one really warns you that a pregnancy does not equal a baby.”

I know exactly what this quote feels like “This can’t be.  I cannot accept this.  But we love her.  We love her so much already.  We can’t say goodbye.” No one should have to accept it.  No one should have to say goodbye.

My old nightmare came back last night.  The same nightmare I had every night, sometimes multiple times per night, in the months after Blue passed.  I am looking in the nursery window at the hospital.  Looking down at the little bassinet holding my son.  I’m watching as people I love take turns holding him.  My grandmothers, my friend Roxanne, Jenn’s cousin Jenna.  I watch as they coo over him.  Kiss his cheeks.  I’m comforted in knowing that there are other angels there to hold him and kiss him.  Just as I breathe a small sigh, happy at least in the knowledge that he is still being showered in love, even if it isn’t my arms holding him, demons come into the room.  Demons may not be the best description, but I honestly don’t know how else to describe him.  They come with their stink and their peeling skin.  They have long thin fingers that don’t look as though they know how to touch gently.

They rip my son from my loved one’s arms.  They take him away.  I scream and beat on the glass.  No one can hear me.  My family tries to stop them, but always the last thing I see before I awaken is a demon methodically breaking my loved ones wings.

My son is gone.  There is no getting him back.  While I understand that the demons did not actually take him, there is still no getting him back.  I shouldn’t have had to say goodbye.

Cori and Kacy have a long road ahead of them.  I am four years out and the hole in my chest has not grown any smaller.  While I live day to day and am no longer drowning in pain, it is still there.  It is still very real.

I closed my eyes again last night, Blue Bear wrapped safely in my arms.  I cried for a little while, and then put the tears away.  Life continues moving forward, even when all you want to do is scream and tell everyone that life stopped over four years ago.  When we are in moments of grief and mourning, we look around us and people are continuing their everyday lives.  People get gas.  People go grocery shopping.  All we can feel is pain and heartache and despair.  How can they keep living their lives as though nothing has happened?

But, life goes on.  We rebuild.  We find new normal.  I am hoping that if the Real L Word is on for another season that Cori and Kacy continue to be on the show.  That they can show the world how it feels to lose a child.  So few people understand.  I don’t want anyone else to ever feel the pain, but I do want people to know that it happens.  Know that we hurt.  Know that while they live their lives everyday without the knowledge that there are angels all around us, we do.

Cori and Kacy, you are not alone.  There is a whole community of women that feel your pain.  We are holding your hand as you navigate through the pain.

 

Versatile Blogger

Allison over at New Space, Fresh Start nominated me as a versatile blogger. Why thank you, Allison!!! What does that mean? Well I’m just going to copy from her blog:

There are a few rules:

* add the Versatile Award pic on your blog post (Hmmm  can’t find it)
* thank the blogger who nominated you (Check!)
* share 7 random things about yourself (Below!)
* nominate 15 10 0 fellow bloggers (See random fact #1)
* inform the bloggers of their nomination (see above)

Now, I would like to note that I am rather random on here most of the time anyway.  I share stupid silly little random facts all the time.  So this really got me scratching my head as to what else I can share…here goes!

Seven Random Facts About Me:

1-I don’t tag other bloggers. Why???  Because I am too lazy to go link up other people’s blogs lol.

2-I have a foul mouth.  I think I always have, but it was properly repressed.  I cannot imagine the amount of times my mother told me not to use the word suck.  I said my first real swear word when I was 17.  I said damn.  I was certain that I was going to be damned for saying it.  After that…it was all downhill.  I can make sailors blush.  The flip-side of this is that I am pretty darn good at controlling my mouth around Avery and Delaney.  Except for the new bad word.  Stupid.  Yes, I admit it, I say stupid A LOT.  Well, Delaney can hear you say it from three rooms away, at a whisper.  She will come running in, point at you, and say “Heidi said a bad word.  You no say stupid.”  Do you know how often I want to say back “Well you just said it too!”  I had no idea how often I say stupid until there were three year old ears listening to me.

3-When SWMNBN left and I had to open a new bank account, I choose the bank she got fired from in 2008.  90% because I knew she would never be able to get a job there again, so I would never have to worry about her looking into my finances (and yes, she would do this to other people), but 10% because I wanted to stick my tongue out at her.  This currently pisses me off because they have new check cards, and I really don’t like the design.

4-I LOVE to fill out forms.  I may have bought a raffle ticket from Avery the other day, just so I could fill out the little ticket stub.

5-I have a list of seven tattoos I want.  It will be awhile before I get any of them, but I have the list.  No, I won’t share all of them, but one of them is a tramp stamp that will read “Tackilicious”.  But I refuse to get that one until I have reached my weightloss goal.

6-I am obsessed with Burt’s Bees chapstick.  On my nightstand right now there are six tubes of it, and a tin.  I love the stuff.

7-On that same note, when I open one of my tubes of chapstick, I wipe it on my hand before it touches my lips.  You never know who could have used my chapstick.  Crush caught me not doing that the other day and told me she had just used it.  I wiped my lips off and started again.

 

So seven useless facts about me.  Consider yourself tagged if you read this.  Or, if you want to actually be tagged, leave me a note in the comments and I will become unlazied for a moment and tag you myself 🙂

 

Polar Bear Plunge 2012

I did it y’all!!! I took the plunge!! I was so nervous I was sick to my tummy all morning long. Avery held my hand as we walked out to the car, gave it a tight squeeze, then looked up at me and said “I’m nervous for you, Heidi! But you are going to do so good!!” Delaney still doesn’t understand why I jumped into a river…it is cold Heidi.

All six of us piled into the car and headed off to the plunge. I sat in the back clenching and unclenching my fists. It gave me something to do. I also texted quite a bit. Kept my mind off of where we were heading. When we got there, Chris dropped me and Joni (who was a huge trooper by the way, tons of walking was involved to come watch me) off so I could go register. When I turned around after registering, there was my Lyz, waiting to walk with me as my wonderful moral support!! We walked down the walkway, my hand securely in Delaney’s (I’m cold Heidi, why you doing this??) and we arrived at the tent TattooJenn had set up.


And that would be about the moment I stopped breathing. The next hour absolutely flew by. We took in the sights:



(Yes, the bath house cracked me up)

Did the Chicken Dance:


Took some photos of the group of plungers I joined:



This is the Famous TattooJen and her beautiful wife CJ

And then oh my heck it was time to plunge!! Lyz took a picture of me as a before picture:

They my CLAD+J left to go stake out their spots on the banks of the Susquehanna to wait for me to run into the water!! Thankfully, CJ had promised to hold my hand (or handcuff me to her so that I wouldn’t run away)

The closer we got to the water, the colder it got. I wore a bathing suit (A very old one…I was surprised to find it was actually a little big on me!), mesh shorts, and a pair of Crocs tennis shoes. That was all. I had briefly considered wearing leggings under my shorts…but thought that if I was going to do this, I was going to go all out! So, bathing suit and shorts it was.

The walk felt like it took forever.

Then we were told to wait a little bit. So we did a cheer:

Walked some more and I saw Avery and had to wave:

While we were walking, CJ and I discussed how deep we were planning on going. We both agreed to go all the way under, even though you aren’t required too. But again, why do something only halfway?? I was going under, come hell or high water!!

And then all of the sudden we were standing on the bank. Waiting for them to tell us to go.

They started counting down from 20. I missed 19-4. All the sudden all I can hear is 3-2-1. Do you want to know what I was thinking right then?? OMG DO NOT SLIP AND FALL DOWN.

And then we were off…



(This is me “yelling” at CJ to get her head under the water)

(look under the right arm of the man in the black tanktop…you see me coming out of the water, so not a sexy face!!)

Yes, it was cold:

But I think CJ’s picture better represents that fact:

Group after shot:

In all honesty, I wasn’t that cold. It was a bit shocking, and my thighs had that tingly burr cold feeling, but I didn’t feel all that GASP I’M FREEZING TO DEATH feeling that I thought I would have, especially not after Lyz came running over with my towel!!

After changing we went back to the car. I still didn’t feel cold. About one hour after the plunge…wham. FROZEN. I had Joni’s coat, a huge blanket and still didn’t feel warm. I wrapped those two items around the heater. Nope, still cold. We stopped for lunch…frozen. Waiting for our table I pulled Avery and Delaney onto my lap and tried to suck all of the warmth out of them. Finally, Chris took pity on me and took me to the bar and bought me a shot. That helped A LOT!!!

I still hadn’t warmed up when I went to bed. And somewhere in there I had taken a 30 minute VERY HOT shower.

I will be doing this again next year. While at this year’s I was already planning it. What a perfect place to wear your wedding gown!! (I changed my mind on that though…I cannot imagine all of that weight! The dress weighs a bazillion pounds as it is, I can’t imagine how much it would weigh soaked in water!)

Thank you to everyone who donated money to the Special Olympics to help me do this!! Thank you to TattooJen and CJ for inviting me!! And of course, thank you to my CLAD+J for coming along and cheering me on in my craziness!!! LOVE YOU ALL!!

One more picture…just because it makes me laugh…Red Solo Cup…I Fill You Up:

Merry Christmas!! Happy New Year!!

Yes, I realize it is now February and I am just getting around to a Christmas/New Year’s Eve post.  Hush.

So…Christmas.  Dare I say…it was the bestest Christmas EVER!!!  No, really.  I don’t think I have ever had such a wonderful Christmas day.  I had dreaded it.  Until a few days before.  Then I was overwhelmed with love and peace and happiness and Christmas became the bestest day a girl could ask for!!

There were new pjs:

There was pizza for Christmas Eve dinner:

There was a letter to Santa:

There was a letter from Santa:

There were cookies left for Santa:

There was a fire roaring in the fireplace:

There were presents:

And more presents:

And a few more presents:

There was a happy Delaney:


There was a happy Avery:


There were happy sisters:


There were happy adults too, but for some reason I have no photographic evidence of such things.
And then…there was the aftermath:

Most of the stuff in the aftermath pile is only for the girls. Us adults kept our piles separate! Yes, we go a little overboard for Christmas.

Then there was New Year’s Eve!!

There were kids hidden in piles of Teddy Bears:

There were princesses:

There was the Fry King:

There was a beautiful bride (in a dress about 10 sizes too big):


And there was a group of very happy people!!

Updates

• Joni should be coming home from the hospital today.
• After a tearful phonecall with my bank, I have money again.  Now all I need is to be certain I have a check card in my hand before I leave for vacation.
• My car is mostly fixed.  Really, no one has any idea what in the world is wrong with it.  But they replaced two parts, and hope that is the solution.
• I finally grew some and have started talking on the phone to Crush.  My mom is probably wondering why this is a big deal.  I spent the vast majority of my high school career on the phone.  Well, since the invention of texting, I became dependent upon texting.  Well…now I’ve started using the phone more again.  (I am laughing as I type this because my phone has rang 4 times just while typing this bullet point.  Avery, Chris, My boss and a friend lol)
• I love the sound of Crush’s voice.
• Someone texted me yesterday because they figured out who Crush is.  It made me giggle.  It was Crush’s own fault…she kinda outed herself on my facebook page!!
• I have to go now because Avery had called because she would like me to be home.  And I have an errand to run before I go home…so BYE!!!

Even when life is at its worst…

…I can still have fun.

Joni is in the hospital.  She had a minor surgery scheduled on Tuesday.  A quick one hour surgery, be home that evening.  Instead it turned into over five hours, and she might be home this weekend.

I went to pay my car payment on Tuesday morning and my check card came up declined.  I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why.  I have money in there, I had transfered extra money because I leave on vacation in two weeks.  Signed into my checking account to find that I’m currently over $600 overdrawn.  Someone hacked my account and went on a spending spree in London, Belgium and Kuwait.  Hope they are having fun!!  (Transactions will be reversed and my account will be back to normal in 2 to 4 weeks.  It needs to be two weeks…I leave for vacation in two weeks.)

Then I ran to go pick up my t-shirt for the Polar Bear Plunge.  On my way home Emma pulled another “Let’s die on the side of the road” stunt.  Thankfully I got back to the hotel.  Emma is currently in the car hospital.  Finger crossed that someone can figure out what her malfunction is.  And that it is a cheap and simple fix.

I got home Tuesday (borrowed The Hotel’s truck) and showered and packed so I could go spend the night with Joni.  I’m not a huge hospital fan, then again, who is?  So I wasn’t able to sleep much.  That and the fact that Joni talks in her sleep so I kept thinking she was asking me for something.  I fell asleep around 4:45am…the residents start their rounds at 5:15am.  I spent all day at work daydreaming about going home and relaxing.

So when I got home, I got to spend time with my CLAD.  For some reason it feels like I haven’t seen them in forever.  We went to the craft store and then to Avery’s TKD.

*Do you all have the Hey Tell app on your phones?  It is like group walkie talkie with an answering machine.  I love it.  I belong to a group of Lyz’s friends friends (that is for you Abby!) and while I am too shy most of the time to say anything, I love to listen to them all day long.*

As we pulled into the gym parking lot, our friends were gathering for dinner at Debbie’s house (HI DEBBIE!!!) and Lyz said I should go over there.  My shyness kicked in and I replied that I have no idea where Debbie lives.  Lyz countered with “Well, then I will drop you off over there”.  I didn’t respond.  Abby said she was two minutes away, she would come get me.  So, I went.  I’m much more comfortable around them now.  I talk, every so often.  I don’t try to hide behind anyone else.  Though I usually pick one person to keep in eyesight at all times.  Last night I picked Abby, since she was the one who got me there.  My new friends are a ton of fun to be around.  It is mostly women, so I don’t have to be afraid of scary men.  To be honest, the two men that I have seen the most with them are quite wonderful, and don’t make me want to run away and cry.  I actually spoke to Tommy last night…we talked about religion, and I love to talk about religion, so that was easy.  And Blake, well I love to listen to him on HeyTell.  The only guy that really scares me is FakeTommy.  But that is a long story, again involving HeyTell.  And since Lyz is afraid of FakeTommy too, I don’t feel like such a ninny.

It is nice to get out.  It is nice to have friends outside my tiny little circle.  It is nice to be able to talk to people.  You really have no idea how much I have come out of my shell in this last year.  If Lyz would have tried to “pawn me off” last year, I would have been a bawling mess on the floor.  Last night, I just took a deep breath, reminded myself that I like these ladies, and they like me too (Debbie said that I’m like a celebrity to them, I don’t understand why, but it made me feel good!).

And to round out my wonderful evening…Crush and I had a conversation about taking a mini-vacation.  So there is always something to look forward to isn’t there?

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”