be it ever so humble...

My cozy little mountain home is really starting to take shape. I now have a real kitchen table (and it's beautiful!) with my teacup collection as a centerpiece... and I have my big ole tv in my room - on the floor because there's not a single piece of furniture in the house sturdy enough to hold it but... that's ok! I put the twin mattress that I snagged from Michael's house underneath my little twin airmattress and it's a right comfy bed and high enough off the floor that I'm not having to do crunches to get up off the floor! The nest is back, baby!

Today I made cupcakes with pink frosting for Sarabeth's birthday which is tomorrow. When I went to feed Princess (their cat - they are on a camping trip) I wrote in sidewalk chalk on the driveway as follows:












SB stands, of course for Sarabeth... and Max is my special name for her. We play "Fetch" where she pretends to be a dog and I toss a toy or stuffed animal across the room and she fetches it like a dog and drops it at my feet. She's really good at panting like a dog and wagging her tail. I don't know why she likes to do it but she does. It's our thing. After the week I spent with them, when I told Sarabeth I was moving she said, "but who will fetch me?" She's an amazing child and I love her like she was my own! Tomorrow night she has a soccer game and we'll go out to dinner afterwards. I love being a full-time aunt... the girls deserve it and I need it.










On the left is my girl, Whitney, from Jacksonville at the Gators game on Saturday night. She's not just a beautiful girl, she was the one person who kept me sane (to some degree) while I was living in Jacksonville and feeling so terribly alone. She will always have a special place in my heart. It will be hard when I'm not able to text her all the time... but we can email back and forth at work all day thru the company email system. *wink*

I was saving pictures off my phone and this is one that I just left as it was on the phone. While I was in the ER... while i was unconscious... there were pictures taken of me with the intention to discourage me from ever doing anything like that again. Instead it just made me feel incredibly violated. Some of the pictures were pretty graphic... and it really disturbed me to see them... and they were shown to me while I was still recovering in the ICU, when I was so very vulnerable and really unable to process such things. When I came across this picture yesterday I decided to save it to remind myself of how far I had come. It feels really good to be alive.

I made a roast in the crockpot today and Cody and Josh came up and had dinner with us. We played a little Wii fit and Cody helped set up the DISH connection on my tv in my room and put together my kitchen table (we had to take the legs off to move it). Josh couldn't believe I had cooked... I had really stopped cooking for awhile and although I'm not THAT good of a cook... I do love preparing things for my boys and I love having them around to share a meal. Honestly... just sharing a meal with anyone is a blessing. You have no idea how hard it was all those months to always have dinner alone. Austin had his own escape - Brady's house - and usually ate with him or ate something quickly and wanted to do his own thing. I treasure these simple things like a family meal.


It's good to be here.