Is it Summer yet???

Howdy!  No I promise I haven't fallen off the face of the earth but things have been hitting us left and right around here.  I think our faith is being tested but we are standing firm :)  Oh where do I begin..... well I'll try to condense it as to not bore you out of your minds.

December 24th we received a call from my youngest that her Dad (my ex) had been taken to the hospital with severe chest pains and couldn't breath so I called my two other kids and let them know and off we went to the hospital ER.  They ended up admitting him and we found out that he would have to get a triple bypass so then the emotions started flowing so into "Mom mode" I went.  Christmas Eve is the time we have all the kids and grandbabies to the house and my ex (Ron) always is invited also.  So when our plans got thrown to the side my hubby and I told the kids no worries, whenever he is out of the hospital, we will have Christmas then.  We found out he would have to get surgery in January to we ended up getting to have our Christmas December 26th.  Everyone felt very blessed to have everyone together and OK.

January 10th I was up bright and early, and I do mean early (3:00 a.m.) so that I could get ready, get my coffee going and head over to his house to pick him and all 3 kids up.  The kids wanted to be with their Dad to spend time with him and make sure he wasn't alone the night before the surgery.  Got to the house at 4:00 a.m., got everyone situated and we all piled in the van for the 50 minute drive to Seattle at Swedish Hospital.  His surgery was scheduled for 7:30 a.m. so the kids got to see him while they were prepping him and then off we went to the waiting lounges to receive updates for the average 4 hour surgery.  Things went well and they said he was the poster child so that was good but then the first visual of him after surgery was very hard for the kids.  I don't think anything you say can even begin to prep your kids what they will be seeing, especially when they've never seen their Dad go through anything like this ever.  Well I can say he was released on Saturday, January 14th along with his "heart pillow" and over to rehab to start to heal and learn how to function totally different for a few months.  Now mind you this picture is not of his Dr. or Ron, but you can see how the pillow really looks.  This is his new best friend.

So you are probably thinking, OK that is a lot to deal with, but why may this stress someone out, being divorced and stuff now?  Well I had myself been dealing with some health issues and went into the Urgent Care on the 14th after having some kidney issues and having a harder time breathing, thinking I was fighting a chest cold.  Did the Dr. listen to me??  Nope instantly said we are treating you for cardiac, hooking you up to a EKG, giving you Nitro, pushing an IV drip and transporting you by ambulance to the ER ASAP.  I'm thinking ARE YOU SERIOUS!!!!  Well to make a long story short, I didn't have any heart issues, not sure what was going on with my kidney and it was more of a chest infection so I am fine but was told I need to bring my stress level way down and put on "home" duty for work for 2 weeks.  I just finished my first week which was actually nice.  You see, yes more stress, work has been at an all time high of stress so am ready for a change lol.

So you think OK, so things will settle down now right?  Nope...then we got hit with the hardest snow storm that the Seattle area has encountered since 1986, and on top of that an ice storm right after it.  Stuck in the house, working from home and power through all of it but 1 hours, we made it through with flying colors.

My poor maple tree.  Fortunately it made it and I didn't lose any limps, almost but got it knocked off before that happened.  I can't say some of our neighbors were as fortunately :(

A shot of our vehicles that are encased in a 1" layer of ice with snow on top of it, and another layer of ice on top of the snow.  Not fun let me tell you. 

But with all the above happening, I am feeling good and ready for some "normal" to come back into my life.  My crafting has been pretty much none this past month, other than working on a project a little and I'm almost done so hoping to have that posted soon.

So what have I learned through all this?  Be thankful for all that is around you and don't things for granite.  Enjoy your life, keep the stress level down and stay healthy.

So with that, have a wonderful rest of the weekend and happy crafting!  I'm excited to get back to reading the blogs and see what cha all are up too :)

xo ~ Laura