Happenings

Hello friends! Welcome back to this little blog of mine. I know it’s been ages since I’ve posted, but life has been more than a little crazy around here. Over the last five months my husband and I have endured some of the biggest stressors life can throw at you. To go into everything that’s happened since March would take around 10,000 words, so I’ll just give you the highlights.

The biggest thing that happened was the passing of my mother-in-law, Traci. She was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer four years ago (two weeks after our wedding), and over the years she endured a mastectomy, hundreds of chemotherapy treatments, radiation, and two brain surgeries to try to beat the cancer. This spring things took a turn for the worse, and at the end of April, after a few days in the hospital, she elected to go home on hospice. We spent a lot of time at her house during her last month, right up until she passed away on May 25.

Traci’s death was hard for everyone, but I’m so thankful we were able to spend a lot time with her at the end and that we were with her when she passed away. I miss her a lot, but I’m happy she’s not in pain anymore. Rest in Peace, Traci <3

Our Race for the Cure team, “Show Me the Cure for Ta-Ta’s!” two years ago today. Traci is in the center wearing the white hat.

At the same time we lost my mother-in-law, we were also dealing with the stress of selling our home, buying a new house, and moving to St. Joseph, MO, about an hour north of Kansas City and a 75 minute drive from our old home in Lee’s Summit. Moving is always stressful, especially when you’re moving out of town, and moving at the same time that we were dealing with the loss of a loved one put my stress levels at about 1000. And when I say we “at the same time,” I mean that literally: the movers packed up our house while we were at Traci’s funeral.

Needless to say, the past few months have been quite busy and stressful. We’re slowly settling in to our new and house and getting to know St. Joe, though I do miss Kansas City and our old house. We did have some good stress in all of the craziness though: Ben graduated from residency at the end of June, and he started his new job as a family physician at the beginning of August at a clinic here in town. We were also able to get away for a week and relax by the pool at a resort in Mexico last month, which was wonderful.

So, with all of the stress and business of the last several months I had to step back from blogging. Plus, I found out that blogging is a little like exercising: once you get out of the routine of doing it, it’s hard to get started again, even if you miss it (which I did). But now that life has settled down I plan to get back into my blogging routine and share more updates with you. Over the next couple weeks I plan to share some of my tips for getting your house sold quickly, our house hunting journey, and pics and plans for our new home.

Thanks so much to those of you who have stuck around during my hiatus, I really appreciate your understanding and support