When Life Really Does Change In An Instant

You know that people say these things; "Life can change in an instant"... And although you cognitively know it to be true,
because it is, and you know that and so do I, you just can't really get it until something big happens in your own life
or to someone that you love, I think.

November 6 is my sister's birthday and my mom and dad's anniversary.
My sister was born on their first anniversary.
It's hard to believe that November 6  was just two months ago, when I got the call that my dad had just had a stroke.
Because it feels longer... and shorter.

When my sister called, I knew it was bad.
Then my brother called.
Should he wait for me? Drive himself? He didn't know what to do.
Bleeding on the brain.
I knew it was really bad, I just knew.
I didn't know what to do either.
Get all your stuff, turn out the lights, lock up... I had to tell myself those things.

I got the call right as I was about to leave work, right before the kids were to get out of school.
So I had to run home, meet the kids at the door and wait for a few minutes for my mother-in-law to get there.
I was near hysterics and trying desperately to hold it together.
Let it be noted here that I do not function beautifully under stress. Ehem.
I felt guilty that I wasn't able to hold it together just a little bit better for the kid's sake.
They knew I was upset, they had seriously worried looks on their faces, I felt horrible.
I also knew that there was a chance that things were going to be really bad and I also couldn't hide that from the kids though.

Between the time I initially got the call at work until I got into the emergency room, was probably about 35 minutes total.
I was sick.
All I could think of was that there was a really good chance that I might not ever see my dad again.
It may be too late by the time I get there.
What if it was too late?
Fear. There was so.much.fear.
What about all the things I never said or did?
I just wanted to be there, with my mom and dad and for everything to be okay.

In those first moments and days and weeks, I made promises to myself and to God and to anything
and anyone I could think of, to please just let him get through this.
Let us all get through this.
As the days and moments and weeks went on though, the biggest thing I told myself was that I would live my life differently though,
no matter what happened, because of all of this.
Life is short, it really is so so short.
We are not promised tomorrow.

It's time to stop putting things off, no more: I will be happy when this or that happens, when I am in a better financial situation... 
A happier place in life, a better job, a different house or city, once I finally lose the weight.
There may not be a tomorrow or next year, all we really have is now.


I have much more to say on all of this but I will leave it at that for today. 
Today my dad is doing good, he is here with us and I am so thankful for that.
When I say "when life really does change in an instant" please know that as I say that I also recognize that this may be a big change for us
with long-lasting effects but overall it had/has a good outcome. My dad is alive.
I know catastrophic things happen to people every day with very dire outcomes and they don't get the chance to say and do the things
they wanted to do, that they thought they still had time to do.
Everyone doesn't get this little nudge from Life, as a reminder of how precious every day really is.

{ Escaping the ICU and getting to see the sunset from the hospital windows and seeing that

 life goes on whether yours is standing still, or not...}

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Thank you for reading.

{Virtual Coffee}

Good Morning + Happy  Tuesday Wednesday errr--  Friday. 
I am craving some kind of normalcy and routine and I thought for old time's sake I would pop in here and do a Tuesday
morning Virtual Coffee post - and then I realized... it is Wednesday morning.
But that's okay, so we are having Virtual Coffee anyway... even though it is now
f  r  i  d  a  y   and I am just now finishing this post.
Geeeez.

Check out my new perfect-sized mug I got at Target last week, I love the blue, my most favorite color is blue.
So I have a thing for coffee mugs, and maybe probably have way too many, but I am always searching for just-the-right-size
latte cups and this one is pretty good.

Anyway- If we were really meeting for coffee this morning...
I would tell you that the last couple of weeks have been an absolute whirlwind with nothing feeling normal at all... 
like nothing, so this feels really good.
Just sitting on my couch,  freezing under a blanket and drinking my coffee... feels perfect, just perfectly normal and I love it.

My dad was in the hospital for thirteen days and he's home now but there is a really long way to go and so many things to 
figure out and.... it's just a LOT. A lot.
So until I am ready to even sit down and talk more about all of that I will just say that my family is so feeling thankful for so
many different things and the whole being thankful/Thanksgiving thing truly takes on a whole different meaning for us this year.

And speaking of thankfulness and Thanksgiving... note the pumpkins I still have out in the living room?
I know all of you love Christmas just a whole, whole lot but it's still Fall(ish) around here.
I stick pretty hard to my no Christmas stuff out until after Thanksgiving rule, not because I don't like Christmas just like
everybody else, but because I want to attempt to enjoy the holiday season I am in currently.
Attempting, I said.

If I am honest I will tell you that I am still not adjusted to this time change at all.
Still.
In the hospital we would look out the window and see the sun going down so early and it felt like
it should be 8:0 pm .... but it was only like 4:45 pm.... which just made for much longer nights.
The hard part for me is the lack of sunshine during the day we have been having lately...
I have learned as I have gotten older that the lacking sunshine thing really bothers me, even more
than the cold weather, if that's even possible.
If I can ever get my tired, lazy $#@ up early in the morning I know I will get to enjoy some early morning light though,
which is a definite good thing.

And yes, it's true, we have had snow already and I just felt kind of indifferent about it.
Probably a little annoyed, too.
Leaving the hospital late at night after a long day to realize it snowed and you need to 
scrape ice off of your car and you don't have a scraper in your car, is not a good thing.
But right here, in this shot... it looks pretty, right?
It did look pretty falling and we didn't get much at all.

One more thing before I go this morning, I just finished this book and I loved it.
It isn't very long at all and was a pretty quick read!
Suddenly, in this weather, all I can think about is reading books and baking and being under the covers way too early in the evening.
Time to nest and hibernate for the Winter I guess.


Thanks for stopping by here for coffee this morning, hope you have a great day !
Any fun plans for the weekend?
Tonight the kids and I are going to celebrate a Friday night not in the hospital with pizza and some movies I think.
That's exactly the kind of Friday night this mama needs!


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All The Feelings + The Last 10 Days

November 6'th was my sister's birthday and my mom and dad's 47'th wedding anniversary.
It's also the day my dad went into the ICU.

I don't think I quite have the mental energy to go through the whole story from beginning to end yet, but he had a stroke.
It's not the usual kind, this stroke caused bleeding in the brain. A lot of bleeding.
Instead of surgery at this time,  the doctors opted to see if the blood will be reabsorbed into his body.
In the mean time, you pray that there is no more bleeding.
And just wait and see what happens.

These last ten days have been full of fear, waiting, hope and exhaustion.
They have also been full of friends, family and a lot of good things, too.
I think these last ten days we have felt ALL of the feelings... all of them, from one end of the spectrum to the other.
Often all in a matter of hours.

These are the days to be thankful for so much, I know this.
These last 10 days have been full of so much, including so many big lessons, personally.
And so much hope.

There is so, so much more to say.... But this is all I can muster up tonight.
If you have commented on my Instagram posts or sent a kind message or kept us in your prayers, then Thank you, so very much.


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