Welcome To The Ark....

                

Well, I've been doing a yard sale with a dear friend the past couple days. Today, the girls came by to visit and have their lunch with me. Gracie was browsing our local shelter website, as she's prone to do each day, when she stumbled upon this little guy. 

Peaches is a 10 month old angora bunny with eyes that make you melt. She must've texted her dad a picture without me knowing....next thing I know, I'm getting a call from Sarah asking why her dad is at the shelter. I proceeded to ask why SHE was at the shelter. She skipped right over that question and told me her dad was looking at a rabbit. 

Lo and behold, Craig shows back up at my yard sale with a cardboard carrier. He hands it to Gracie and tells her Happy Early Birthday, then explains that she's been so hard working and helpful with things at home, he wanted to do something special for her. 

Welcome Home Peaches. We hope you enjoy life in the ark :)

                

       

    

 

 

 

 

Of Mice and Men... or rather.... Life in the Ark

What a month this has been!  I can't believe that it's almost over because, frankly, I really don't even remember it starting.  I guess that's what happens when you're my age and in an accident that totals your truck and wracks your aging bones ;)

Seriously, I'm still on the mend.  The left side of my upper body is still hurting, screaming at me by the end of each day.  I started Physical Therapy last week and am very thankful for that; but it's still a bit of a long road to full recovery.  While I didn't suffer cuts and broken bones, I did end up with whiplash and a constant onset of headaches (not my migraines).  It slows me down to a crawl at times... and I don't have the patience for this pace, I gotta tell ya.  Honestly, if the headache would go away and stay away, I'd be forever grateful.

All that aside, we are enjoying our family time more than normal lately.  The simple things like working alongside each other, iced coffee runs, spending time with our animals, listening to the girls giggle, country drives on a rainy evening, just all seem to be sweeter this year.  Why?  Maybe because we are getting a bit older, the girls are growing up and getting their own lives, who knows.....
Does it matter why?  Not really.  What matters is that we take the time soak it all in while we can.

I LOVE that picture up there :)  Hannah embracing the moment, like she is prone to do.  Here is what was going on behind her....

We'd just finished grabbing dinner at Chick-Fil-A.  Craig and 3 of his girls, last Sunday night :)

Around our home right now, we are doing some spring cleaning.  The girls are cleaning out and finding things to sell this weekend at a yard sale my sweet friend, Julie, is having and invited us to sell our excess stuff as well.  It never ceases to amaze me how suddenly appealing EVERYTHING becomes when Mom suggests they get rid of it ;)  That said, I'm very thankful that the girls are so willing to help since I'm in more of a "delegating" role at the moment.  Even if we don't unload everything I'd like to around here, some is better than none.  As they are cleaning out, we are trying to organize a bit too.  Gracie put together some cubby units for my sewing supplies over the weekend (Hannah supervised for a bit, then ran off to take care of the dogs, as they were more fun than shelving;).  Gracie always impresses me with her handyman skills!

While, Gracie was busy working on the organizational part of my sewing studio, I converted a little vintage toy truck into a new pincushion.  We make quite a team;)  Once it's all put together, I'll post some pictures.  We are going for a campy, fun, vintage look so we can be easily inspired with new projects.  Tiffany blue and vintage yellow is the color palette :)

We are spending Brody's final days loving on him every chance we get, all day long, every day.  We know his time is near, but are cherishing the time we have left with him.  He is just such a special boy and we want to fill our hearts and minds to overflowing with memories of him and his sweet face.  Losing any of our animals is always heartbreaking.... and he is absolutely going to tear our hearts to shreds when he is no longer here to snuggle and love on.  He had a bit of extra energy yesterday and fetched a ball a couple of times, wagging his tail slowly, and smiling up as we poured out praise on him:)

Please excuse the "spring clean out" mess!

On the "grand-furbaby" front: Doug is getting along beautifully!  We all adore this goofy boy and Gracie especially loves to spend time with Tess and Doug :)

Then of course, there's Sarah's little dog, Annie.... the princess of the house.  Yup, Gracie has fun with her too.....

Seriously, she has no qualms sitting in a baby walker!

 We make at least a couple trips each week to Tractor Supply.  This is what horse crazy girls do when they're picking up bedding... apparently they think the cart is like a Disney ride;)

Wendy Loo Hoo is behaving herself and loves all the attention she gets each day from her girls.  Craig has aptly dubbed her "Princess Poops A lot"... it's a well earned nickname;) 

That's pretty much all that's going on around the ark lately.  Nothing big, just enjoying each other and all our critters and hoping I heal up enough to be able to do some of my summer projects I've been planning on since this past winter.  If not.... well, I can finish some of my quilts that are waiting for my attention;)

Mother's Day and Final Good-Byes...

Last week was a blur.  We've never TOTALED a vehicle before, and were consumed with the details of it all, especially since we are working with the other driver's insurance company.  It's all been good, just beyond our normal busyness and chaos.  On Friday, we went to the tow yard to swap tires out on Lucy and say our final goodbyes.  I cried for the first time since the accident.  Seeing her sit there like that just did me in.  She was such a great truck and our family had wonderful times driving all across the country in her.  She never let us down.  She didn't let me down last week either, when I ended up in a head on collision at 55mph.  Between Lucy and my guardian angel, I walked away.

Can you believe it???  That grill survived without any damage (maybe a couple of scratches from the gravel).  I'm still amazed at that when you see the front of Lucy.

We enjoyed a "free" rental for the weekend, since Lucy is no more.  Gracie, being the Ford fanatic that she is, was in Heaven as we had an new Expedition to take us around to look at new sequoias along with a graduation party out west.  Pretty fun, and we felt a bit like secret service since it was black;)

As I mentioned, we went out west on Saturday afternoon.  We spent the morning taking care of all the animals; making sure they had plenty of food and water for the day, along with lots of love before we left.  I noticed that our little geriatric gerbil, Daisy, was still weak from another stroke a couple days earlier.  She'd had one, we realized in hindsight, a few weeks back, which we thought we were losing her from but after a few days she popped right back to her normal, sweet self.  Saturday morning as I was caring for her, I saw that she was still struggling to open her eyes all the way and that while she was able to get around just fine, she was clearly still weak.  I gave her LOTS of love; told her how beautiful she was and how much we love her.  I gave her extra treats, which she came right away to investigate.  That night, when we got home, we saw that she'd passed away while we were gone.  Daisy was a bit over 4 years old (twice as old as gerbils normally live).  Her sister, Daffodil passed away just over 2 years ago.  She was such a sweet little thing.  She knew her name and loved it when we sang the old song "bicycle built for two" to her.  She would sit right up and listen with her little head cocked to the side.  She also loved to rearrange her cage....I seriously will never know how she always managed to move her ceramic mushroom house all on her own, but she did :)  We already miss her greatly!

Sweet Daisy... Gracie had posted pictures of her awhile ago on her musically :)

Our sweet boy, Brody James, isn't doing very well either.  He's a golden retriever/border collie/great pyr mix.... a gorgeous and very special boy.  We've had him since he was 7 weeks old and he's now 9 1/2 years old.  We are pretty certain that (per the vet's observation and dx without imaging and testing) that he most likely has cancer, however, at his age we've opted to not put him thru a lot of hard testing and treatment, rather to allow him to enjoy his last weeks/months surrounded by lots of love and being spoiled.  He's not suffering, just aged really fast because of this, and is just really slowed down and very snuggly.  He's enjoying time with his sister, Felicity, and brother Max, along with lots of time with all of us each day.  He gets everything he wants, I cook hamburger or chicken for him rather than dry kibble (we water down his special kibble so that it's mushy and add meat to it so he will actually eat it).  We know that he will let us know when it's time to help him cross the rainbow bridge and we will do everything he needs us to do for him until that time.  Our hearts are heavy with thinking about losing him, but we are not letting that steal our joy in the time he has left.

Mother's Day was WONDERFUL!  Surrounded by my girls:)  We enjoyed taking GramCracker out for a coffee date, then Craig and the girls took me to a late lunch/early dinner at Texas Roadhouse.  Having all my girls together, listening to them laugh, realizing how close they are even though they bicker incessantly, and knowing they love me unconditionally and more importantly they know they are loved unconditionally by Craig and I, means everything to me.  Craig gifted me with a drawing and a promise, telling me not to give up our dream.  Gracie gave me a picture to frame of her and Wendy Loo to frame (a gorgeous black and white picture that Emily Anne, our very dear friend who is extremely talented with her camera, took recently).  And Craig and the girls gave me a My Pillow, hoping to help me sleep better - which I have to say was amazing last night!.  Sarah ordered something for me that is suppose to be here this week, so I still have a surprise coming :)  All in all, it was a wonderful Mother's Day :)

Here's hoping that as we head into the end of our school year and the beginning of summer, things settle down a bit around here.  Time just seems to be going by a bit too fast right now and I'd like a chance to catch up ;)

A Sad Good Bye To Our Lucy.....

Saturday started out normal enough around our home.  Craig had gotten our lawn mower back from the repair shop the night before and was spending the day mowing and doing all our spring yard work before our neighbors held an intervention (due to the mower needing repaired, our yard hadn't been able to get mowed yet, this spring.  It was looking a bit wild;)  Gracie and Hannah had dedicated the day to scrubbing all the critter cages.  And I.... well, I was running a couple errands before I'd planned to tackle some laundry and housework.  Sarah's phone hasn't been working, so I met her at Verizon in-between her shifts, to try to get it working again (it's only 6 months old), but there was no saving that phone; she needed to have it replaced.  Being a T1D mama and relying on her phone to be working so that her dexcom CGM would continue to give us all of her BG readings, I opted to drive up to the Apple store in Omaha to get it replaced rather than wait for Verizon to mail her a replacement.  I called Craig and told him my plan, and bemoaned the fact that I'd be missing the Kentucky Derby, so could he please record it for me; then off to Omaha I went.

Just me and Princess Margaret (our GPS) along with some country music..... alone.  This NEVER happens.....Little did I realize then how thankful I'd be that everyone else was safely working away at home.  I looked at my gas gauge and opted to get gas in Omaha (cheaper there), knowing I had enough to make it.  Driving along, enjoying the perfect spring weather in Nebraska.  I come upon an intersection in Elkhorn, as soon as I enter the intersection the light turns yellow, but I'm in the intersection so I continue on, as I should.... then I see it.  A white car turning left, right in front of me!  OH CRAP!!!!  I glance in my right,  rear view mirror, no car... I veer to the right to try to avoid that car, slamming on my brakes, and praying the car stops coming at me.  There is nothing else I can do... my foot has the brake pedal down and isn't letting up..."Please God, let him stop!!!!"  Then that horrid sound of exploding airbags, cracking glass, and crunching metal.... The smell!!!  Smoke!  And my Sequoia is still moving, but my foot is still on the brake pedal...."Please God, don't let me hit that light pole!"  Lucy finally stops

It's hard to breath.  Why is there smoke?  This is not what I expected airbags to look like.  My car is sloping forward, downhill.  I need to call 911.  Where's my phone???  Why won't my door open????

Panic starts to build, but then I see a man in a light blue shirt and a bald head.  "Are you ok?" He asks.  "I think so, but I can't get my door open.  I need to call 911"  He tells me he's already calling them, and right then I see the County Sheriff pull up.  The man in the light blue shirt fights to get my door open...then I never see him again.  The sheriff's deputy comes over to see if I'm ok, I tell him I'm an asthmatic and need my inhaler but it's in my purse which was on the floor and I can't get to it.  He comes around and is able to yank the door open, gives me my purse, and I tell him all my info is in the glove compartment and he's welcome to get it (again, I can't reach it).  I ask if the other driver is ok and I am told he is, he's just really shaken up.  

There are eye witnesses and they graciously stuck around to 1- help if needed and 2- tell the deputy what they saw.  I call Craig and tell him what happened.  I send him a pin of my location.  Then the Deputy asks me what happened.  "I was driving and the light turned yellow when I was in the intersection, then the other car turned right in front of me.  I slammed on my brakes and did everything I could, but he just kept coming"  That was consistent to what the eye witnesses had told him.  I look over and see a young man, white as a sheet, on the phone with (I assumed ) his parents or insurance.  I sat down on the cement support around that light pole I was praying desperately about and told him it was fine, he should sit as well.  I look up and see his mom arrive.  My heart ached for her.....this is THE phone call every parent dreads. and I'm sure when she pulled up and saw her son's car un-drivable with airbags deployed, it shook her to the core.  I asked her if he was ok, she said he was; he was really sad and shaken up...he told her "Mom, I thought I had time..."  a mistake that an inexperienced driver easily makes.  One I'm sure he will never forget.  We both walked away from that accident, thankfully.  I don't know about him, but I'm super sore and have had a headache from the pain since.  I have a doctor appointment tomorrow to make sure it's just jarred up old bones and hopefully nothing more.  But poor Lucy..... she gave all she had to keep me safe.  

We have had Lucy for years.  We've driven her all over the country; she's even taken us to Disney World twice.  We've toted kids, animals, critters of all sorts in her.  We LOVED that sequoia!  And today, we are sad to know that she is no more.  I hope her successor is as reliable in the future as she was for all the years we had her....her successor has a lot to live up to :)

Yesterday, I asked the girls how they felt when Daddy told them "Let's go.  Mom's been in an accident"  Gracie told me that all he said was "let's go" then told them a few minutes later, after pinpointing where I was, what had happened.  Hannah spoke up and said "I don't want this to sound bad, Mom, but I wasn't really worried about you because I figure you're indestructible.  I was worried about Lucy though, and was afraid that this might be it for her"  She has always been the child that makes me laugh at the most inopportune things ;)  Apparently though, (at least this time) she was right... I'd debate the "indestructible" part though, as I'm moving kinda slow and feeling it a bit too much ;)

RIP LUCY  We loved you!