Dear Lynnae 10 years ago…….

A friend put up a nice little comment on facebook today that really got me thinking. It was this….

“If you could go back ten years ago and tell yourself some things, what would you say?”

Dear Me…….. The day is coming up with the truck on the freeway and the skidding and the guardrail…..And even though you’ll walk away and be very thankful, still be able to function and look normal to everyone, and despite several rounds of physical therapy, your neck will basically be painfully nagging you for the rest of your life. Please take the back road that day.

And Dear Me……check into some custom shoe  inserts now before those foot problems set in. Once the kids are in school you will have more time to exercise, and guess what? You ARE going to lose weight and be active despite your setbacks, but it takes a toll on your feet, so let’s try to avoid the shots, braces, casts, and pain, OK?

Love every moment with Jon and especially the girls, they grow up so fast. But you already know that. There will be challenges, but trust me, come 2010 you wouldn’t go back for the world.

Just thinking about what it would be like to not have a sore neck and not have a sore foot brought me to tears. Think of what I could have done then……….

But on the other hand, I’ve been led on a path, and learned so much about myself, maybe my successes were because of those challenges, not in spite of them. And ten years ago if you would have told my I would lose that weight- I would have been jumping for joy.

I think I’ll jump for joy today!

 

OK, so what would YOU tell yourself if you could go back ten years? You sat through my rant, now lets hear yours.

On Into May

The arrival of May for me has been like waking up from a fog. Here is a brief sampling of what I’ve been up to.

I bought fabric for a Jane Austen dress for the AGM in Portland. My Mom is going too and it is going to be FUN! One fun fact about this cloth….I had the same fabric in an empire waist long dress I had when I was a kid. My mom made all the girls matching dresses for Christmas one year. I wonder if any of those dresses are still kicking around? They would be great for a little niece to wear to my next Austen party!

My second Daughter is overcoming her health problems. As I write she’s taking an AP History test (You go girl!) And a month ago I was wondering how she would even make it to graduation. I am so grateful to the Lord for her recovery. Here is a sneak peak at her prom dress.

 

My oldest Daughter brought her boyfriend up to our place to visit Washington and meet us over spring break. We liked him, I hope he liked us, and I think we had a lot of fun and ate a lot of sushi.

I am exercising again. To say my foot is better is not accurate really, but I couldn’t take it any longer. Besides, gaining back weight I fought so hard to lose is not going to help the foot either. But that’s another story.

I’m trying to get ready for the ‘Where Bloggers Create’ party I mentioned in the last post. Since writing that I acquired the summer issue of ‘Where Women Create’. <SIGH> It’s so beautiful. I have already been through the ‘first perusal’, and the ‘reading-every-word-cover-to-cover’, now I will go through and dog-ear the pages that I really REALLY love….

As for my studio space, There’s a few things I need to finish up, but with the blog party being days after daughter’s graduation, I have to be realistic about what I can get done. I am committed to participating though, ready or not!

I’m Dreaming of a White Table……

…Or, How to turn my frown upside-down.

Today started off pretty crummy. Regular readers know that I had Dry Needling and a Cortizone shot a while back in an attempt to help my plantar fasciitis and was told I would not be able to jog or do aerobics for eight weeks. Now I am in week TEN and my foot still hurts. So either it’s healing very slowly or it didn’t work.

  You may not know that over the past few years I’ve lost 100 lbs. It’s not something I’ve shared with the blog, though it’s one of my greatest accomplishments. That’s a story for another day. But I just have to emphasize how important exercise is to me. I have returned to Jazzercise, and do a ‘hardly moving’ low impact workout, but today in class it was all I could do to not start bawling. Seriously, loud music pumping and everyone’s happy and I’m blinking away because I’m so frustrated with this darn foot.

I wish I’d never had the stupid shot!

So, my foot is pretty good if I sit around all day, but what mom can do that? Plus, thanks to an old car accident, sitting too long makes my neck and back hurt. So these days I feel like it’s a choice between my neck or my foot.

I will stop whining now. I know many people are worse off than me, so I’m trying to get a grip and just be thankful for what I have. In an effort to ‘flip this day’ (you know, like flipping a yucky house into a nice one?) I decided to paint a table I got at Goodwill a while back. The table cost me $19.99.

Original table

I added little wooden embellishments on either side at the base, primed it and painted it white with old paint we had around.

I LOVE IT!

It still needs another coat but I was anxious to show it off.

Close up of the embellishment.

So now I feel a little better. Plus crawling around to paint it I was neither on my foot or sitting all day.

My kids went to see holiday lights and Jon isn’t home from work yet. Thanks for allowing me to be vent some frustration, and yeah, maybe whine a little.

It’s cocoa time.