The Nutcracker and a Bunch of Nuts

This weekend was a busy one, it was go go go for all of us but we survived.  Saturday afternoon we drove up to LA to see our sweet little Miss Mari perform in the Nutcracker, it was a cute show and all of the performers did fantastic. 

I need to bring the selfie stick!

Just trying to get a picture of the three of them!

Still trying!

After the performance we headed over to the Ferguson’s to celebrate Mari’s 9^th birthday and Mr. Pie’s 12^th birthday.  My sister put on a great family party for the two kiddo’s while the Sheriff and I in our stressed out/medical disaster state just sat there, like literally zoned out and neither one of us could do anything, we just sat there, total fail on our part.  The kids had a great time and there were presents for all! Special thank you to my sister for everything! 

Birthday Kiddo's

Cupcakes made by Mari!

No words!

I was kind of thinking I might get Christmas cards sent out once I saw this picture!

Bright and early Sunday morning we drove up to the San Fernando Valley to finish moving the Sheriff’s mom, however she chose to stay a few more days so we will be back to retrieve her.  I honestly think she is going to delay the final move for a while and surf as many couches as she can which is totally fine by me!  I was slightly annoyed that she has no problem inconveniencing us to please herself but whatever it is a few more days of freedom for me. 

Sunday afternoon we headed to the Harbor Patrol Boat Parade party and it was nice to see our friends, some of the friendly faces that visited us in the hospital and of course the pretty lights.  The parade was kind of a bust because one of the boats took a wrong turn and the rest of them followed so we ended up only seeing a few boats pass by the station.  We had been warned to stay away from malls and parties this year due to the Sheriff’s recovery because bright lights, large crowds and loud noises can be overwhelming for brain injuries, however this was the perfect situation for the Sheriff to enjoy; the crowd was on the smaller side and spread out, the lights were dim and the noise was tolerable due to the inside/outside setting.

and the best part of the night for Mr. Pie....

Puppysitting!

  

Coping!

****I wrote this the other day, it was very therapeutic and I don't feel nearly as dramatic today, I am not going to delete this post because someday I will look back at it and remember all we have been through.**** 

The Sheriff is a man of VERY FEW words, he sends me these little quotes here and there, I know this is his way of trying to cheer me up!

I feel like every post on Facebook or on the blog lately has been totally Debbie Downer and to be honest I felt like a Debbie Downer all day every day, it was horrible.  I know what we have been through has been a lot and that my feelings are totally normal and justified but seriously the down feeling was awful.  It has taken awhile but I finally put my finger on it, I have/had some serious anger issues and they all stem from the Sheriff’s Dad.  The Sheriff’s Dad did a really selfish thing back in September that completely changed my life forever and it has made me so angry that I sometimes wish I could finish off his selfish act but the thought of spending the rest of my life in an orange jumpsuit seriously deters me, cause orange is so NOT my color at all!  Because of his actions the Sheriff’s mom is moving into our house, she actually was supposed to come this past Sunday but she wants to spend Christmas with her sister and the Sheriff’s dad so she will be coming to our house around December 27^th, fine by me! I struggled with the fact that she is moving in and annoyed with everyone who wants my help in finding his Dad a place to live closer to us.  Due to my anger issues, I honestly do not care where he ends up (I feel like he deserves a shit hole of a place) and if he ever has another visitor again, so I am not in any hurry to find him a place to live near me.  After he is moved I do not plan on seeing him ever again and if anyone asks I will tell them that I truly hate what he has done.

My other issue is fear, I have known about the Sheriff’s first stroke from pretty much the beginning  of our relationship thanks to Mr. Pie who told me one day while the Sheriff was out paddling and I have kept it in the back of my mind ever since.  On October 17, 2016 at noon my greatest fear came true, he had another stroke and the hours of not knowing how bad or not bad it was were horrible.  Thankfully he has recovered quite well and things are looking up for all of us.  A couple of weeks ago we went to a brain injury support group for the victims of brain injuries and it was there I realized how fortunate we are in our situation; I also attended a caregiver’s support group where I was able to share our story about everything that we gone through.  There I received a lot of advice (from a licensed therapist) of how to handle all of the changes going on in our home and in my life; this was seriously a game changer for me.   Ever since this meeting I have been sooooooo much happier, I have no idea why, maybe I just needed to hear that my feelings are ok and I was shown that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, whatever it is it was a game changer and I doing much much much better. 

This past Friday I learned that I need to have surgery, I have an unidentifiable mass in my uterus at the moment and according to my doctor “it needs to come out!”  At first I could not believe it; seriously, with everything we have been through I could not believe it.  I was mad that this was changing some plans that we had started making for our future and scared that this could end our plans for the future.  I am currently waiting to find out my surgery date and dreading it, mainly dreading the breathing tube they put down your throat because the sore throat that follows hurts the most (I know that is petty compared to them slicing me open, but I hate that tube).  I will be out of commission for 10 days or so, which is not so bad because it is 10 days off of work.  I am hanging onto hope that this will make our future plans happier and healthier and that this is just a small bump in the road. 

The Sheriff finds the sweet quotes, I find the more realistic ones!

This all may be TMI but I have learned that this is my therapy and if I do not talk about this stuff I will explode!  So for all my friends out there who read this please send good thoughts, chants and prayers my way, I/We need them!!!

AMEN!

November Life!

I believe that is has been close to 30 days since anyone in my immediate household has been to the hospital, knock on wood.  The Sheriff goes in on today for a small procedure, it is outpatient and until the FDA approves it to be done in an office he must go to the hospital.  Anywho since we have been 30 days hospital free and I seem to only blog monthly I must revisit November before December is almost over, plus we have some fun things coming up and they deserve their own post. 

I had to look through my phone to even remember what has occurred in the month of November, brace yourselves it is going to be a looooooonnnnnngggggg post, but you will get through it, I promise!   We started out with a small birthday party for Grammy & Grampy, their birthdays are so close together that with everyone’s busy schedule it just makes sense to round up everybody once. 

I jetted off to Las Vegas (my very first time) for the wedding of my good friend Tina.  I bought my plane ticket and committed to the trip right before the Sheriff had his stroke, I really struggled with the thought of if I should go or not, I went and I had fun, but I worried a bit while I was away.  Mr. Pie and I had gone over the signs and symptoms of a stroke several times, practiced our new address and went over what to say and do if he needed to call 911 (not your typical, I will be gone for two and a half days conversation, but……so is the life of living with a person who has had two strokes) and I was confident that he could get help for his Dad if needed too!

A subtle hint to the Sheriff!

The newlyweds Will & Tina

I have wanted new bedroom furniture FOREVER, I found a bed frame online that I really liked, so I bought it (there has been some emotional spending going on lately, some call irresponsible, I call it PTSD).  Our new bed frame came a couple weeks ago and before we had a chance to put it together EBO tried to take a bite out of it, thankfully we caught him before he did any damage.

I also purchased this cute little Home Sweet Home sign for our little casa!

 

The Sheriff’s mom will be moving into our house soon (pray for me), so I fixed her room up a bit.  I painted the walls a light gray and bought some new curtains and it totally transformed her room, we moved our old bed downstairs and bought ourselves a new California King (please read above about the emotional spending/PTSD).

I still need to buy some pillows for the bed.

November continued to chug along, all was well with everyone until 11/21/16 when I had a crazy unexplained bleeding spell, I think it was related to my D&C but no one really knows why.  I will spare you the picture I took of my pants to show my family I was not over exaggerating when I went to the ER.  I was kind of freaked out and my doctor was out of town, so I was left with no other options!  For kicks just imagine yourself wearing skinny jeans and peeing your pants with the fullest bladder ever and that the pee was really blood and you look like a scene out of a horror movie.  Fun times!  At this point 13/14 weeks after my D&C I was still having positive pregnancy tests, so that has been a head scratcher as well.  Part of me is wondering if the bleeding episode was another miscarriage of a pregnancy that did not get very far along.  We will probably never know, but I wonder sometimes.

How we do ER visits these days!

Thanksgiving rolled around and we were excited to host our first Thanksgiving in our new house.  The Sheriff wanted to deep fry a turkey this year so we did.  Everything went off without a hitch until it was time to fire up the deep fryer, that is when it was discovered that we were out of propane, doh!  Thankfully we found an open gas station with propane, so all was well!

He was so proud!

So sad that she did not get to sit at the table.

Apple Pie!

The day after Thanksgiving Mr. Pie and I started our outdoor Christmas decorating!  I bought the fun white spiral Christmas trees for our planters and Mr. Pie assembled them all by himself.  I hired a guy to hang our Christmas lights on our house this year so that the Sheriff did not need to worry about that task. 

I love pulling into the driveway every night after work.

I also started decorating inside, nothing wild or crazy, just some pretty decorations.

And I did a little black Friday shopping at Crate and Barrel, I bought a couple Christmas pillows for our couch.  Christmas is a few days away and I cannot wait to enjoy our first Christmas in our new home! 

So Nice to be HOME!!!

A quick update, first off we need to set the story straight, the Sheriff and I are not engaged it was a mistake and it has created quite the stir amongst all of the “Erin & Ken need to wed” supporters, however if you ask me a nice sparkly ring is well deserved but at this point if a near death experience does not stir the Sheriff to get down on one knee nothing will so we can all stop holding our breath! 

The Sheriff has been out of the hospital for a week now, we spent last week running errands, getting prescriptions filled, scheduling appointments and trying to figure out what workers comp needs all the while already receiving letters saying that there are already delays in his claim and that they need to investigate it further, not sure what needs investigating considering they found him face down at work but hey, has there ever not been a delay with workers comp, my guess is NO!  I took the Sheriff down to Newport Beach to see all of his coworker friends, cried a little bit with them and got a picture of him with Sally & Tina, I treated myself to some retail therapy at crate and barrel and a nap, enjoyed a visit from the Sheriff’s Mom and aunt, napped some more and tried to keep things as normal as possible for Mr. Pie.  

A couple more visitors from work pre-release of the Sheriff.

 Friday night we took Mr. Pie to his school carnival and there may have been a celebrity sighting (Jack), so I took a quick pic before his parents could freak out on me!

My good friend Tina sent us two free tickets to the Haunted Trails in Laguna Niguel after a slight ticket/wristband confusion episode I may of snuck in without a ticket and had they caught me I would of told them they owed me a ticket for our pain and suffering aka waiting in a long line we did not need to wait in.  The event was fun, this was the third time we have gone and every year they do a great job.  Thank you Tina for the tickets!

Trying to blend in with the monsters!

Mr. Pie decorated the front yard for Halloween, he did a pretty good job with the limited decor that we have!

We have the greatest friends anyone could hope for!  Dinner, dessert, dog food and WINE keeps showing up on our doorstep and we are so thankful, while the Sheriff was in the hospital there was no time to go to the market or Costco (for the dog food) and it was so easy to pop dinner in the oven every night when I got home. 

I have a list a mile long of thank you notes I need to write but finding a moment to write them without tearing up has not come yet.

Just in case anyone wants to revisit the first paragraph in this post, this is the ring I would like!

And I will leave you with today's Facebook post... We barely survived September, October nearly killed one of us, let's hope November is dull and boring and gives us nothing to remember or need therapy for!!