wrapping up

this is pete's last week at home full-time. he is set to go back to work a week from tomorrow. i am still loving to have him home and will be sad to have him gone, but i know he is anxious to return to his old life and schedule. having him home for so long has been a vital part to his physical healing and my emotional healing; we are both in a really good place now.

our lives have been changed from this incident, and while we attempt to return to our "normal" life and schedule it will never be "normal" again. we have learned too many things from this to ever be exactly the same again. i'm certain we would both choose the changed version of us. many of the lessons i have shared here and many i haven't. over this next week i will attempt to share a few more in this space. we are all feeling a healthy slipping away of pete's incident, but i'm sure the impact of it will always be so intertwined with so much of what we do and feel that the writing about it will never stop completely. after pete's monumental return to work i think it will be time for my focus to shift a little. my writing here will begin to focus more on all the baby nesting going on around here and about two little boys who are growing and changing so very fast right before our very eyes.

all of you have been so supportive of our family during all of this, and there's no way for us to fully express our gratitude. i know many of you have been changed and impacted from this as well. at the end of this week i have a special plan for you all to share some of those changes and a great big attempt to say thank you. please check back next sunday for more details.

the best part of my day...

...was sam telling me that the best part of his day was getting to sit on my lap. he is sure an easy child to please, most of the time.

dirty refrigerators & other things

a weird night for us... will spilled a pitcher of juice in an attempt to pour his own cup. it went under the refrigerator, so we had no choice but to move it and clean underneath. oh, wow! talk about that needed to be done 2 years ago! yuck!

i think before the incident i would have just expected pete to have moved the refrigerator and helped me; i would've been so hung up on the expectation that i wouldn't have even been able to focus on how grateful i was that he was helping. tonight i was definitely grateful. i was delighted that i married the type of guy who is always willing to get in there and get a job like that done, and i was super grateful that he was still here doing those kind of things.

the weird part is where i took it from there. i should've just finished cleaning the rest of the floor once the refrigerator was moved back. instead i decided it would be a good idea to clean my black kitchen hutch that had been collecting random papers and junk for the last year. ok fine, but then i had papers to file so i decided i would just clean out the filing cabinet that i was going to be filing in. i spent almost 3 hours working on this job. now it's bed time, and my kitchen floor is still dirty, dishes in the sink, laundry needed to be folded, and i haven't even looked at the new stack of books from the library or worked on the quilt that i have going. but darn-it, my hutch and filing cabinet are organized. this is a quality/handicap that i do not love about myself. i don't see it changing anytime soon. oh well... i guess there will always be tomorrow to do the other things.

my favorite lesson

many lessons came out of pete's ordeal; many of those lessons have changed my soul and changed how i try to live every day. my favorite lesson was about not wasting time, not wasting moments; i wrote about that here.

i've thought about that constantly. i don't want to waste anymore of my life not living how i most want to live. a very comforting memory when pete was in the hospital was how much we had shared and done together. i did not have regret that we passed up too many opportunities or that we didn't do enough with each other. i don't ever want that regret, especially when i don't have to. pete and i don't ever want to have that regret. we won't waste this.

i want to live more. serve more. learn more. travel more. create more. share more. give more. laugh more. read more. love more. and enjoy more. now is the time for that. no more excuses.

on the list of things i've always wanted to do is start an etsy shop. in case you are unfamiliar, etsy is a website where artisans can sell all types of handmade things and others can buy beautiful handmade items. i love creating things, and i've been interested in having an avenue to share that with others. that is why i'm attempting to sell on etsy. the 1st item i have listed is a framed hand embroidery piece that is a constant reminder of the important lesson of not wasting the time we are given. if this lesson became important to you and you would like a constant reminder, then please check out my work by clicking here. i also have a link to my etsy shop on my side bar. if you have questions, then please feel free to email me at jenvanderlinden@gmail.com.

thanks for your support in helping me to "not waste this".

a direct answer

this is pete and sam snuggled up on the couch sleeping. when i walked into the room today and saw this, i was touched deeply. it was a blatant answer to one of my most fervent pleas during pete's ordeal.

the first night pete was in the hospital was by far the most critical. i slept at my sister's house that night; i guess i didn't really do much sleeping. it was just where i stayed. i couldn't close my eyes that night; the scenes of the early morning with pete at home played over and over if i even tried to close them. i couldn't stop thinking about how i was going to tell my boys they weren't going to have a dad; i didn't know how i was going to make them remember him. i found myself on my knees pleading more intensely than i ever have; it was a very specific plea. i begged to please let pete come home one more time no matter what his brain was like; please let the boys have one more chance to crawl all over him, and please let pete have one more chance to wrestle them and one more chance to hold them close. there are not words for the intensity of my pleading.

when i walked in today and saw this i knew it was a specific answer to my desperate pleading. pete was home. he did have another chance to hold his boys. he's hopefully home for a really, really long time; he will hopefully hold these boys close many, many more times.

reality check

the weirdest thing happened last night, and i've been a little weirded out all day. i obviously know that pete has an irregular heartbeat; it beats really fast at times, and we learned all about that November 29. well, last night i had a personal reminder of that irregular heartbeat.

i was laying on his chest with my head right on his heart. i could feel it beating normal. then it took off and started beating very fast for a long few seconds. it returned to normal on its own. i really felt it! it reminded me of feeling his chest the night of his incident, and it was moving SO fast. i'd never felt anything like it. last night was weird, too. his heart really does have racing moments, and i felt it. it's even more of a reality to me now. maybe a scary reality. thank goodness for a defibrillator to keep that problem in check!

not tonight

there will be no time for blogging tonight. a few weeks ago in pete's therapy the therapist introduced him to the game sudoku. now we are both addicted. we try to squeeze at least one in every day. we print off the same one, set the timer, and race against each other. we need that tonight; we may even do three. after that we'll go to bed if we're tired, but if we're not then i might start picking away at the sewing project list that seems to be growing faster than i'm working. good night.