Six Months

It's been six months since losing my mom. Six months.

I don't understand how it seems like it happened yesterday and at the same time feels like I've been without her forever.

So many things have changed in the past six months.

Once my mom was at the assisted living facility, I called her every day on my way home from school. She'd tell me about her day, and I'd tell her about my day.

In starting my new job, in central office and in two different schools, with so many new things to learn and adjust to and so many new people to build relationships with, I've had so much I've wanted to tell her. Every single day, when I get in the car to head home, I want to call her. She would always listen to the good stuff, the not-so-good stuff, and everything in between, no matter how boring. Both of my new schools are using the "house" system like in Harry Potter and at one of my schools, the houses are named after constellations. When I was sorted into House Draco, she is the first person I wanted to tell because she had endured my love of dragons since our first visit to Epcot in 1983. Not being able to call her and tell her about my day has been one of the hardest things for me. I do talk to her in the car and I hope somehow she can hear me. She was my biggest cheerleader and I was so fortunate to always have someone rooting for me.

This was the text she sent me when I asked if she thought I should apply for the instructional coaching job:

And this was the text she sent me when I told her I accepted my new position:

The past six months have been a blur...at first the days were so frenzied and then they slowly morphed into an eerie quiet.

In that time, I've struggled with so many competing emotions...grief, devastation, worry, emptiness, stress, heartache, guilt, relief, gratitude, sadness, joy...you name it and I've felt it. I've worked hard over the past couple of weeks to actively seek out laughter and delight because she told us she wanted us to go on and lead happy and fulfilling lives. She said for years that she wanted us to remember her at her best, her funniest, her most loving and giving; some days are easier than others in this regard. Just when I think I'm coming out the other side, something will trigger a memory and I'll be caught off guard and swallowed up by the grief. However, C and I find ourselves telling humorous stories about her, recalling things she said and did that make us smile and in those moments, I'm at peace.

Watching her battle over almost nine years was not easy. As the disease progressed, it grew more difficult in every way, for all of us. But I chose her time and time again, turning down social invites, canceling travel, leaving events early...this is not to make myself seem great, but to explain that she was worth every sacrifice. We had to cancel or reschedule trips because she needed us and I don't regret "missing out" on anything because she was my priority.

Six months into this journey and there is only one fact of which I am certain: I am so lucky to be her daughter.

Happy Tails to you!

Snowy Days

We have been waiting for over a year to experience some snow with Avalanche. I mean, being Canadian but living in a place that rarely gets snow means we are always hoping for snow, but since adopting Avalanche last year, we've been impatiently waiting to see how he would behave in snow!

When we picked him up from his hotel on Tuesday morning, he was pretty excited just to get home, so he played in the snow with us for about ten minutes, which was wonderful, but then decided he wanted to go in the house. While he loves his hotel (he is always so happy to get there and he leaves us without so much as a backward glance!), he just wants to be with C, so the relief of being home after four nights away overrode his interest in the snow.

On Friday, we got a pretty good amount of snow, and it was a different story. Avalanche LOVED the snow! He and I spent time outside together while C worked and witnessing his joy was everything to me. Yesterday we took him for a long walk and then to a dog park and we only left because we were so cold; I'm sure he would have stayed for hours if it had been up to him.

After only having miniature Dachshunds for almost a quarter of a century, there are moments where we wonder what we've gotten ourselves into with this large, fluffy beast who doesn't particularly care for being loved on and whose attitude can best be described as aloof. But after watching him play in the snow, thoroughly enjoying the freezing temperatures, it was clear this is exactly what he was made for!

I took this pic of him looking so handsome
and I then I noticed something about the reflection...

...it looks like the continuation of
his back and his leg!
what are the chances?!?

here he is running across the street
to say hello to our neighbor

I could see perfectly formed snowflakes on his fur!

we were SO cold!

This is one of favorite movies and
I used this pic as inspiration

to capture this pic of my
two favorite guys!

Hopefully this won't be the last of the snow for the winter - it's going to warm up considerably this week, so the snow is going to be gone soon - but even if it is, we've made some amazing memories over the past couple of days!

Happy Tails to you!

WDW January 2024

We had a great long weekend at WDW and enjoyed my favorite Epcot festival while we were there! The weather was pretty chilly and it rained part of the time, but I will take that weather over 95 degrees and humid any day of the week!

For this trip, we stayed at Caribbean Beach, which is definitely tied to so many happy memories over the years. Not only have C and I stayed there countless times, but my family has stayed there together, and my mom and I have stayed there together, too. We love it so much!

We flew down on Saturday morning and spent part of the day at MK and then took the monorail over to Epcot for our first look at the Festival of the Arts offerings. I adore this festival because it's so colorful and there are rainbows all over! We went back to Epcot on Sunday and spent most of the day there, with lunch at Via Napoli. The nice thing about the festival is that there are artist signings and I purchased a Brave print that has Elinor and Merida on it and the artist, Dylan Bonner, signed it for me. Those two characters were very special to my mom and me, so I absolutely love it and can't wait to hang it up. We stayed to watch the Luminous fireworks show and then we had a late dinner at Beaches and Cream and we can't really believe how lucky we've been the last few trips with securing a reservation there! We spent part of Monday at Hollywood Studios and then did a little resort hopping before heading to airport.

Our journey home is the more interesting part of this story. Throughout the day, we kept checking the status of our flight and while it was listed as leaving ten minutes later than scheduled at one point, by the time we took an uber to the airport, it was once again listed as being on time (7:50 pm). Around 6:30, i received a text message about school being closed the following due due to snow, which brought a sense of relief concerning how late we'd be getting home, but also a sense of foreboding about what conditions would be like when we landed in D.C. Boarding began around 7:30 and we pushed back from the gate around 8:15, but then we ended up sitting on the runway until 9:20. When we finally took off, they announced that it would be about a one hour and thirty minute flight, and as usual, I went to sleep, only be be woken up around 10:30 with the announcement that the conditions at DCA were not safe, so we were being diverted to Baltimore. We landed at BWI at 11:00 and ended up just sitting on the tarmac for over an hour before we pulled into a gate. During that time, they announced that they would be refueling and then they'd be flying us to DCA. However, as we were finally pulling up to the gate, they announced they they would not be flying us to DCA, that the trip was over, and that everyone needed to deplane. That was it. No conversation about hotels or transportation options or anything. Obviously, this made a lot of people very angry. C and I were not particularly surprised because we saw there was a ground stop at DCA, so we'd already been discussing our options. B1 and S1 live not too far from BWI, but they were also out of town for the long weekend; we considered taking an uber to their house to spend the night as a last resort if nothing else worked out. Obviously our concern was that we were in Baltimore, our car was at DCA, and Avalanche was at his dog hotel at home. We first went to the taxi stand and that was pure chaos, so we decided to try our luck with uber, and thankfully we had someone accept the job. We got picked up a little before 1:00 am and considered ourselves very fortunate because other travelers were saying they had an uber, but the driver ended up canceling the ride. We really lucked out. It took about an hour to get to DCA, and our uber driver was amazing. The roads were absolutely terrible, with hardly any visibility and countless cars in the ditch, so we were beyond relieved to arrive at DCA safely. When we walked through the terminal, there were so many stranded travelers - school groups, sports teams, elderly folks, families with babies and young kids...I felt so badly for all of them. We got to our car, which, for the first time in two decades of flying in and out of DCA, we'd had to park on the roof of the garage, and started the drive home. Thankfully, the roads improved the closer we got to home and we arrived just before 3:00 am.

The best part of the crazy ordeal was when we landed in Baltimore and I turned on my phone, I happened into the best conversation: two of my best friends were worried and had been tracking our flight and then stayed up to keep me company and endure my frazzled updates. I love them so much!

just sitting on the tarmac in Baltimore

not happy after the announcement to get off the plane

our car at DCA

roads between DCA and home
really weren't terrible

happy to be home and thrilled to see snow

Here's the print I bought last weekend and a few other Elinor and Merida things my mom and I loved:

our magic bands from 2014

I gave this to my mom for Christmas in 2015
and it still hangs in her room in our house

our door magnet for our 2017 Disney Cruise

Happy Tails to you!