This Broken Mess of a Life

The most devastating thing that’s ever happened to me was when my Grandpa died. I’m sure if you’ve lost a loved one, you will understand what I am about to describe… The thing that struck me the hardest was the next morning, waking up, and realizing that the world was going on as if everything was normal. I walked out my front door and I had to do some things….I had to get gas in my car, I had to stop at the store on the way to my grandparents’ house. It was absolutely insane to me that no one around me realized what huge loss had just occurred.  Everyone was walking around like life was normal when it wasn’t. I felt a little like that waking up the morning after this election.

I want to talk about “The Crazy Year”. “The Crazy Year” is the year immediately following the birth of a child or the ending of your partnership/marriage/relationship that was supposed to be life-long.  It’s the year that everyone goes crazy.

So, it's been 6 months since my surgery! Seems like a good time for a little update.

I recently reached out to a somewhat famous blogger/podcaster/personality because I heard some comments from him about his view on giving to the homeless. It really struck a chord with me. His views are pretty common. So I'm posting my letter here as well. Enjoy.

We had a low key 4th this year with some friends and I was in charge of bringing desert. Not wanting anything super heavy, but also not wanting to worry about anything that needed refrigeration, I started perusing Pinterest and decided on Lemon Sugar Cookie bars. Reviewing a few receipes, I settled on this one from Inside Bru Crew Life How'd they turn out?

Some notes on my recovery up to this point: I had my 3 month follow up last week ( which, technically, was more like 3 months and two weeks ) and my doctor said things looked " Awesome ". As usually, that was a HUUUUGE relief to hear. I'm an anxious person by nature ( working on that ) and so the entire time between my first post-op x ray and the one last week I was just worried " oh the hardware is shifting " or " what if it's not fusing "....but it's all going well! PHEW! It's made me really grateful that I got strong and healthier prior to surgery. Looking back several years, when I first had the idea of surgery and my doctor at the time said " You're too young, no one will operate on you ", I'm actually grateful for that. I think my recovery would have been much harder if I was weaker and heavier. The first week, especially, would have been so much rougher if I had been weaker. I can't even imagine what those f...

I'm a bit of a Pinterest addict and I regularly use it for inspiration for my weekly meal planning. Yesterday, I realized I had some chicken thighs in the fridge that needed to be cooked and I had no time to cook them and no idea HOW to cook them. So I went to Pinterest and typed "slow cooker chicken thighs". One of the first recipes that came up was this Lemon Pepper Chicken Thigh recipe. So I went with it. This was possibly my biggest Pinterest success so far.