The last few hours of my 35th year….

In a few short hours I will be saying goodbye to my 35th year on this earth and saying hello to the big 3-6… thirty-six… I guess it is time for me to grow up for real this year ( 😉 Isn’t this what we say to ourselves EVERY YEAR?!?).

I don’t know if you all know this about me yet, but I am a tad bit sentimental… okay so I am a LOT sentimental.. I admit it.. I still have clothes from grade 9.. still have ticket stubs from my first Bon Jovi concert in ’89… I even have paper napkins from some restaurant that meant something to me at one time or another.. but for the life of me I cannot remember what now.  I am sentimental – and I am okay with that… So the day or two leading up to every birthday I start to reflect on the year, and how far I have come, how many steps back I have taken, the people who have touched my life, left my life, changed my life…  I stop to feel blessed that I have another year ahead of me, AND another year that has passed…

In many ways this past year has been more eventful, more challenging, and more fulfilling that any I have had so far.  I have lost people in my life.. found others… and tried to leave my ‘heartprint’ each and every day…

I have created a beautiful home with the love of my life and found a stability that I never knew existed…

I have seen my little dude absolutely flourish and become one of the coolest people I know, regardless of his age…

I saw my Dad ‘pass’ his cancer check again, and the magnitude of the miracle that has happened in his life, and subsequently in ours…  YAY DAD!!!

I shook my head with shock and dismay when I found out I lost someone I loved dearly to cancer… and realized just how precarious and vulnerable our lives can be…

I saw some friends walk out of my life.. reconnected with old friends, and made completely new and wonderful friends…

I got off one medication…

and got put on six more…

I began to ‘deal’ with the pain I’ve been feeling  for years…

and then I started to develop ‘new’ pain in different areas…

I started to accept that I won’t have another child grow inside my body…

I cried with the love of my life… and he loves me more now because of my tears…

And together we adopted the cutest puppy in the entire world… and yes I am completely biased!!

I started Graceful Agony…

and I have met some amazing people who have become my second family and my life-long friends… You know who you are, and I love all of you!!

I was published for the first time…

I found my passion in writing again…

I got to love fiercely, and be loved fiercely…

I woke up in pain every single day…

I went to bed in pain every single night…

and through it all something really tangible happened….

I found purpose, and hope… love and friendship…. acceptance and a fighting spirit…

I found my voice… and began to love ME for the first time in my life.

I will be sad to see 35 go… it has been one hell of a ride

-but-

I am SO looking forward to see where this journey takes me through my 36th year….

and I am looking forward to sharing my journey with all of you.

Thank you for making the past year one of the best ever… it wouldn’t have been the same without you.

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My life has been turned upside down!

My life has been turned upside down… or maybe it is finally right side up!!  LOL!!

I am so sorry that my posts here are spaced out more than they ever have been… PLEASE have some patience with me.  You are all so very important to me, but having Lucy in our lives has taken every spare minute I used to have! 😉

Sorry this picture is a bit blurry… it was taken with my cell phone camera… This is Lucy sleeping with her Ducky… LOL!  She is so cute!!  Her nap time is my only free time right now, and once I have picked up her toys, cleaned the carpet ( potty training is SO much fun! LOL!), gone to the bathroom, and fed myself – she is up and ready to go again!  So that is the reason I haven’t had time to post much this past week. 😉

For those who don’t know, we got the call last Friday afternoon that Lucy was healthy, and ready to go!  She went to the vet, got the all clear, and had her vaccinations.  She weighed in at a whole .68kg!!  What a BIG GIRL SHE IS!! 😉

Tim and I WERE SOOO excited, and Friday was a VERY long day – waiting to go get our little girl.  We picked her up late evening, and it has been a roller coaster ever since… and we couldn’t be happier!

The weekend was a blur of late night feedings, crying in her kennel, LOTS of cuddles and kisses, and cleaning the carpet every 20 minutes.  😉  All in all though, she has adjusted to her new home incredibly well, and has become the center of our family.  It makes me tear up to see my little dude with his new baby ‘sister’.  He is such a LOVING protector of our little pup – sometimes he can forget her size, and I have to remind him to be careful, but other than that his life now revolves around Lucy.  Isn’t it a rite of passage for a boy to have a dog?  If that is true, my little dude has a changed spirit about him.  He sits and watches her sleep for hours… LOL  and the moment she twitches he screams out “Can I pick HER UP??? MOM SHE’S AWAKE!!!”… he runs her around the living room, giggling without boundaries, holds her like a baby while she sleeps, and even cleans up her “accidents” on the carpet…. He couldn’t be a better big brother.. and it makes me proud!!

While I type, my honey is out with Lu-Lu Bell to give me a bit of a break.  I took the ‘night shift’ with her last night while my honey slept… so he thought he’d take her out this morning, and let me sleep and get caught up on ALL my responsibilities that have fallen by the wayside.  It is nice to get up and have a coffee before starting my day…

If I sound delirious, it may be from sheer lack of sleep… but I feel delirious…deliriously happy!  The bond Lucy has created in our family is tangible – She has perfectly unified what was already there.  She has given me the gift of looking and loving outside of my pain… she makes me laugh… she loves me in the sweetest most unconditional way… and I don’t remember life without her now…Life from this moment is going to be a BIG adventure…

We are EXPECTING!!

And no… I don’t mean in that way.. tee hee…. Wouldn’t THAT be a miracle! 😉

Introducing LUCY GRACE!!

Birthdate: Feb 24/10

Breed: Morkie (Maltese Yorkie Cross)

Weight: um… I don’t think she weighs more than a hard-boiled egg 😉

ISN’T SHE BEAUTIFUL?!?!?!?!?

For those of you that don’t know,  I lost my beautiful kitty after 16 wonderful years.  Calvin was my heart and soul – my friend, and no matter how much pain I was ever in or how ugly I felt my life could get at times, he always loved me unconditionally.  He saw me through so many life-changing experiences – From my pregnancy and the birth of my son to my marriage, my divorce, my health… 16 years is a long time, and he was my constant… We lost him just this past November, and it has proven to be much harder than I ever thought it was going to be.  It has left a hole in my heart, as well as in our family, and I find myself learning how to do just about everything without him.

After a cloudy period  of intense grieving I realized that my pain was becoming less and less controlled as time went on.  I didn’t realize how much Calvin helped me get through my days, and how much I had depended on him for that.  After speaking at length with my honey, we BOTH realized how instrumental my furry baby had been in my healing process.  We spoke about the possibility to have another baby at some point but I knew that I couldn’t adopt another cat, for fear that I would be ‘replacing’ my faithful friend.  I tried to look at some kitties online, and their pictures made me cry… We knew we had a surplus of love to give, but we didn’t know to WHOM.  We looked at hundreds of classified ads, in shelters, and kept an open mind to the idea of adopting another family member when the time was right… We responded to numerous ads, and none of them felt ‘right’…. I didn’t want to get an animal just for the sake of having one – I wanted to find the perfect fit.

Just over a month ago I found an ad, and after chatting at length via email to a WONDERFUL gal, we decided that we wanted to take it a step further, and go meet with her and see her pups.  I was really nervous, and didn’t know if I was making the right decision.  My honey and I chatted nervously all the way to her home(or rather I chatted nervously, and he was cool as a cucumber!), and we both agreed that there was no pressure in making a decision right away, that we wouldn’t do anything that didn’t feel right… We were just going to ‘visit’, and if that meant walking away without a puppy, that would be fine…. It was actually a relief to give myself permission to say no…

Right from the moment this amazing gal opened her door, I felt right at home.  She led us into her own personal bedroom where she had her pups loving set up right beside her bed.  You could tell in an instant that her pets are an integral part of her life, and how much she truly adores them…. This litter had just been born – they were two weeks old at the time, and the tiniest and most helpless creatures I think I have ever seen!  One by one she let us look at all 4 pups.  We sat on her bedroom floor like we were in our own home… The first little boy she put in my hand was insanely cute, but  I didn’t feel a connection…Then she placed Lucy in my hand I just KNEW that she was the one…. I immediately fell in love.

Lucy having a snooze in Mommy's arms 🙂

This tiny ball of love hadn’t even opened her eyes at that point, and was a bit flustered about being so far away from her Mom’s breast… She was squeaking and squealing and rooting around, and as soon as I placed her in my honey’s hand she calmed right down and fell asleep… In that moment something in my heart broke open…

It didn’t just break, it broke wide open… all the emotional and physical pain that I was carrying around since I lost Calvin came pouring out. I was finally purging all the sadness, and in its place came a sense of overwhelming calm and peace.  But it wasn’t just that…. It started the process of healing in many places in my life.  There was something about holding her that filled me with hope.

I am trying to come to terms with the fact that I may never be able to carry another child – and it is something that I just cannot wrap my head around.  Being pregnant with my son was the single most life-changing experience I have ever had.  The magnitude of the miracle of child-birth was never lost on me.  I spent the whole 9 months of my pregnancy in complete awe and wonder…. and I have spent every day since in the same fashion.  I was made to be a mother, plain and simple.   At a time in my life when my health fell apart, and my marriage did also, I wasn’t thinking about ever having another child – but as time went on, and my heart healed from the terrible trauma the last few years of my marriage brought about, I was open to the possibility of sharing that experience with someone else…. IF I ever found HIM… With all the complexities and challenges I face each and every day, I didn’t think I would ever find someone who was strong enough to love me unconditionally… And then Tim walked in to my life.

Tim is the absolute love of my life.  He is my very best friend.  My soul mate.  I never knew how ‘complete’ my life would become after having lost everything. Boy was I wrong!!  He has stuck by me through thick and thin, through better and worse, and the ‘worse’ has solidified who we are to one another just as much as the ‘better’.  At this time of my life, I have never been more EMOTIONALLY ready to have a child… but the devastation lies in the fact that my body just can’t. 😦

Until the moment I held Lucy for the first time, I never thought it possible to feel entirely whole considering  a choice that Tim and I should have the right to make freely has been taken away from the both of us.  I have carried a lot of anger in my heart for quite some time because of that (among other really intense emotions)…. And holding that helpless little baby in my hands took some of that anger away….  and opened my mind up to the possibility to still be able to become “new parents”, but in a way I hadn’t expected.

We left that day knowing that Lucy had completely taken over our hearts, and would soon take over our home as well 😉 .

We have two more weeks to go before she is fully cooked and ready to come home 😉 and all of a sudden I find myself nesting the way I did when I was pregnant… although my feet aren’t as swollen, and I don’t have the intense chocolate cravings.. (Okay, maybe I do a little..).  I am focused on baby-proofing our home and we already have toys, a bed, a leash and collar for her…  I am actually surfing knitting patterns on the net for puppy coats and blankets… I feel like a nervous and excited first time Mom again (Or I have lost my mind.. 😉 ).

Yep, we are expecting… and I don’t know if I can be much happier….. I hope she likes her new family.