Revolutionary

How do you normally eat a kiwi? Peel off the fuzz and slice it up? Me too. Until today.

This morning I was packing up my lunch and snacks for work. I pulled a few kiwi out of the carton and was going to slice them up when I realized all my Tupperware was dirty. I decided to put them back and just pack an apple instead. When I took a second look at the carton I realized there was a picture of a little girl with half a kiwi in her hand and she was eating it with a spoon and looked very happy.

How have I never realized that you can eat a kiwi like that?!?!? That is so much easier and faster and less messy than my method.

To make sure I was not the only person in the world that didn't know about this amazing kiwi eating method I asked my friend Kiki how she eats kiwi. She is old school like me and uses the peel and slice method as well so I let her in on my newest discovery and it totally rocked her socks.

But I couldn't stop there! I had to let the whole world know (or at least the 5 people who read my blog)!

Enjoy your kiwi friends!

A Trip Back Home

This weekend I made an impromptu trip back home. I had actually been looking forward to the trip all week, but the minute I sat in my seat on the plane my eyes filled with tears and I had to fight them back for the rest of the hour and twenty minute flight.

I was actually surprised by the tears. Not that tears are any stranger to me these days since they are pretty much a daily occurrence. I was surprised by the tears because this isn’t the first time I have been home since my mom passed away three months ago. This is actually the third time. I didn’t cry those first two times when Danny and I set off on the drive to Brownsville even though I knew I wouldn’t be seeing my mom at the other end. I didn’t even cry when we pulled up to the house and I knew she wouldn’t be waiting inside. So why were the tears coming now just sitting on a plane?

I realized this was the first trip I had made home by myself. Danny had been with me the first two times which I guess helped me keep my mind off things. I also tend to not cry in front of people because it makes me feel awkward. So silly I know. This was also the first time I had flown home since my mom passed away. I knew that when I landed at our tiny airport in Brownsville I would not see both of my parents goofily smiling and waving at me as I made my way towards them. That is probably the best part of flying into a small airport. People stand there and wait for you to come off the plane instead of just picking you up outside of baggage claim.

I guess somehow my dad knew that I would need my spirits brightened. He was there waiting for me even though my flight got in twenty minutes early. He was standing there goofily smiling as usual and holding up a sign that had my name on it. He said someone else had been there holding up a sign for a doctor and he wanted to make sure I felt important too! Mission accomplished. I know I am the most important thing to my dad who would do anything just to get a smile out of me.

All that emotion before I even got to the real reason for my trip home! I went home to see my grandparents. Both of my mom’s parents have been going through some pretty rough stuff recently. My grandpa has been in the hospital for about a month with stomach and kidney problems. About a week ago they told us it was stomach cancer. The very next day my grandma was walking out of the house to go to church and she fell down and broke her wrist and her pelvis.

My grandma is doing better than I expected. We were all worried at first that she would be bed ridden for the next few months while she waited for her pelvis to heal but fortunately the break isn’t too horrible and she is able to sit up and move her legs. She can’t get out of the bed on her own or walk on her own yet but at least she won’t have to be immobilized for months and just laying flat in a bed. When my dad and I got to the rehab facility to see her on Saturday she was sitting in a wheel chair and had just gotten back from therapy where she said they make her try to walk and do leg exercises. She is a strong willed lady who hates not being able to do things on her own so I think she will be ok.

My grandpa on the other hand hasn’t gotten the greatest news. He is too weak to do anything about the cancer. Both chemo and the surgery to remove part of the stomach would be too much on his already weak body. The decision has been made to send him home so he can enjoy whatever time he has left. He looked really good when we saw him on Saturday. He ate well, sounded good and said he wasn’t having any stomach pain. My hope is that whatever happens, he is pain free. Who knows, he might surprise us all and have another year of life left in him. If not, at least I know my mom will be there waiting for him with open arms when he gets to Heaven.

I bet that is why she went before all the rest of us. She just had to make sure that Heaven really was perfect for all of her loved ones and so we would know that a familiar face would be waiting for us when we got there.

Special Delivery

Last night I got a special delivery in the mail. A package from Amazon came that I didn't order so I called Danny to tell him that something had come for him. He told me not to open it. I don't like surprises so of course I opened it and got a pleasant surprise. Well, there were actually two packages from Amazon and the first one I opened was a carbon monoxide detector so that was not exciting at all but the second one was awesome!

I opened the box to find this



The most delicious sour candy ever!!! Two giant tubs of it!!!



I had emailed Danny a link to the candy about a week ago and he asked me why I needed that since I still had tons of sour candy from Christmas at home. I had to explain to him that it was my favorite sour candy ever. He didn't seem impressed and I knew I didn't really need that much candy so I forgot about it until a few days later when I decided I needed a little after dinner snack. I was racking my brain trying to figure out where I could get my yummy belts and then I remembered they had them at a grocery store we used to go to when I lived in another part of town. Danny said that was too far away and we had just come from there as that is the neighborhood we had eaten dinner in, such a buzz kill. Then I remembered the store in mall that you buy candy out of the bins from and costs like a million dollars which Danny also vetoed since it was 9 pm and he hates the mall. I had plans to go the mall the next day anyway so I knew I could get some then, which I did.

Now, a couple days later I have two tubs of my very own! I ate about 8 sour belts last night and burned all the taste buds off of my tongue but it was so worth it. If anyone has any sour belt cravings you know where to come to get your fix!

Birthday Fun

Someone in our house celebrated a birthday this past weekend.

Our sweet little Oliver turned three years old! I can't believe he has been with us for three years already.

Of course we had to have a little photo shoot of our cutie pie wearing his bday hat and posing with his gift.

After a while he got bored and started trying to eat the number off of his hat!

Finally it was time to open his gift.

I think it is safe to say that he loved his mini t-bone treats!

Happy Birthday sweet Ollie!

The Green Door

This past weekend I gave our front door a little face lift!

Our front door was pretty drab and I would love to get a new one, but those things are expensive. So instead of spending hundreds of dollars on a new door I decided to just give it a little $20 update.

This was our front door. Boring, dirty and blah black.

My little helper peeking out!

It definitely needed some color. I decided to go with a color called Chopped Chives. I figured green would look nice with our red brick and black shutters and it wasn't too girly for Danny to veto.

I am not a novice painter but I decided to go ahead and check out some front door painting posts from my favorite DIY blog Young House Love. I knew they had tackled this same project on their own home recently so I re read their post so I could get some pointers.

It took me five thin coats to get the coverage I wanted I on the door. Every time Danny would walk by he would say, "Wow, that is green". I think he was worried about the final product!

While I had all the hardware off the door I decided to go ahead and give it a quick paint job also. Again, I took some pointers from Young House Love on this. It really is amazing what a difference a little bit of spray paint can make! It totally gave the door hardware new life. I was worried about it scratching off easily but so far we have not had any problems.

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Here is the new front door in all of its green glory! It did turn out a little brighter than I thought it would but I am really happy with it. It just looks so much more cheery and inviting.

A New Normal

To say that the past couple of months have been rough would be an understatement. One month ago today my beautiful mother passed away. She went in to the hospital for something minor, ended up in a coma 5 days later and stayed in that coma for over two weeks until her body shut down and she left this world.

Sitting in a hospital day in and day out, sleeping on hospital floors and chairs, putting on a happy face for visitors, putting on a strong face for family members, seeing your loved one laying helpless in a hospital bed day after day, holding that loved ones hand while they leave this life, planning a funeral, attending a funeral, smiling through the pain, and dealing with the aftermath of a life lost too soon can take a huge toll on you.

This has been my world.

The whole time my mom was in the hospital I just knew we were going to get a miracle and she was going to recover. When the doctors would come in and tell us the odds of her pulling through and would list off all the things that were going wrong with her I would listen intently but their words never devastated me like you would think they would. Something inside me kept saying, “This isn’t going to happen, she is going to make it, she isn’t ready to die.”

Every time we would walk into her room we would look at her monitors and hope to see a positive change in the numbers. We would check those monitors hundreds of times a day. We had gotten so used to looking to those monitors to tell us how she was doing and letting those flashing numbers determine our emotions for that day. Sometime towards the end of her last week in the hospital I stopped looking at those numbers. I didn’t even realize that I was not looking at them anymore until someone would come into the room to visit and ask me how she was doing and I really didn’t have any idea what to say. Normally I would be able to tell someone her blood pressure trend for the day, her heart rate trend, how her breathing was, how high they had her ventilator, and everything in between.

Some people may say I was in denial and just didn’t want to see the numbers anymore because I didn’t want to believe them but I call it faith. Something inside me changed. I realized that those flashing numbers meant nothing to me. It didn’t matter what they said, all that mattered is what He said. I couldn’t let those numbers determine my mood and my outlook and my emotions for that day or hour or minute because in the end the ultimate decision on the fate of my mom didn’t lie with me or the doctors; it was up to God. And while it may seem scary to realize that no matter what we do here on earth we may not get the outcome we want, it was actually comforting.

I knew that my mom was resting in the arms of Jesus while she was lying in that hospital bed. I knew that He was there with us as we prayed for a miracle. And I knew that He knew what was best. That is what got me through the day she passed away and every day since.

I have had to wake up every day for the past month to the reality that I have a new normal. Some days are tough and some are surprisingly easy. There are days when out the blue, the reality of my life will sneak up on me when I least expect it and literally take my breath away. But, at the end of the day, no matter how great a tragedy this has been or how heartbroken I am over this, I have to thank God for all the thousands of ways he has blessed my life. I know I am lucky. I got to spend 27 years having a mother who loved me more than life itself. A mom who made me feel special, and beautiful and important every day of my life. A mom who thought I was the most amazing girl she had ever met. A mom who sacrificed things she wanted so I could have what I wanted. A mom who loved me when I didn’t deserve it and worked hard to mold me into the person I am today. And even though I don’t have my mother on earth anymore, I now have an angel in Heaven.

Yup, I am blessed.

Freedom

Saturday afternoon we had an incident.

A certain green reptile escaped from his pond and was trying to break in our back door!





Danny was about to walk into the back yard when he noticed Jaws looking in at him through the glass! He has lived in the pond for about 2 months now and he has never gotten out but rain on Friday night made the water level in the pond really high and he was able to sneak out! We returned him to the pond and used a bucket to get some of the water out so he couldn't do it again.

Turns out once he got a taste of freedom he wanted more! I looked out our bedroom window on Sunday afternoon to make sure Jaws was still in the pond (I was paranoid and checking on him all day). I didn't see the stinker so I started scanning the yard and noticed him walking along the side of the fence between the flower beds. I have no idea how he was able to pull him self out of the pond again so I went back out and grabbed the bucket to pull more water out.

Rain storms last night filled the pond to the brim again, so I made sure to go pull water out last night before bed before he had a chance for another escape.

I am hoping when I get home from work today all the animals will be accounted for. I figure three things could have happened today:

1. The dogs were patrolling the yard so Jaws was too scared to climb out of the pond

2. Jaws got out and the dogs poked at him all day and gave him a turtle heart attack

3. Jaws found a way out of the yard and moved on to bigger and better things.

I am really hoping options 2 and 3 did not happen and my beloved turtle is safe and sound!