I woke up this morning to 58 degrees. That’s a big deal in south Florida. It actually feels like autumn even if the only fall color is the fake garland I’ve used to decorate my house. Cooler weather energizes me. I’m not naïve. It won’t last, so I take advantage while I can.
As soon as I got dressed and came downstairs this morning, I made myself a cup of coffee and headed outside with a blanket to enjoy some time with the Lord in the cold. (Don’t laugh, you Northerners! 58 is cold for us!) A friend texted me around 9 to ask if I’d had my breakfast outside. She gets it. Or at least she knows me. Lol.
The thoughts came to my mind, echoed in my friend’s next line of text. It could stay like this all the way into the opening of 2024. YES! I would love that. Would make the lack of seasons a little easier to bear. But a pang of guilt shot through me the second after that thought flitted through my head. God gave me (and all the cool-loving people stuck in season-less south Florida) this day. He sent a touch of fall for me to enjoy, but that wasn’t enough. I wanted more. I admit, I still want more. I love this weather. But I realized I had to take this day for what it is. A gift. If every day were like this, I might not appreciate this one as much. So I thanked Him and begged His forgiveness for not being satisfied.
Eventually my messy kitchen called me back inside, where I rushed to open the windows. With AC running all year long, fresh air from open windows is a rare treat. So with gratitude in my heart for God’s gift of lower temperatures today, I’m off to clean while enjoying the natural cool of the outdoors.
May He always remind me of the little blessings He bestows each day. And may my heart be ever open to His rebuke when I’m tempted to grumble about what I don’t have.
This post should have gone up in May, but hey, read my last post to find out why it didn’t.
We put a lot of effort into making this baby shower special for Meagan and those who attended, and honestly, for us as well. Was it stressful? Yeah, of course. Events are always stressful for me, but they are fun, too. And I had a blast putting this one together.
Most of the party decorations buy ready made, when they look nice, are too expensive. Or then the store bought stuff is just plain tacky. Sometimes what you really want doesn’t exist. So we made our own.
Meagan and Rob like fantasy. They each have their own preference, because let’s face it, fantasy encompasses multiple, very different tastes. But they settled on a Hobbit/Lord of the Rings nursery theme, so we organized a Middle Earth shower.
Some of the stress, for me, came in boiling things down. I had so many different ideas of how to go. I found these really cool travel posters for Middle Earth that an artist had designed, which was one direction I’d considered. And if I ever plan another Middle Earth type of party, I may still go that way as long as I can get a hold of the posters.
We decided to go in a different direction. Here’s what we settled on.
Piano with Middle Earth flags garlandHobbit door wreath for Rowan’s roomDiaper cakeGollum’s goodies — Guests had to guess how many Swedish fish were in the bottle.Food TableLembas BreadHedgehog with “Shire-Cuterie” (No, I can’t claim them as my own. Found them on Pinterest.) Shannon’s cupcakes on the stand Serge made for Meagan’s weddingTop of other bookcase with Rivendell decor. A little hard to see, but you get the idea.Top of bookcase with Lothlorian decor.China cabinet with a teddy bear FrodoMoria decorGondor decoration in living roomHutch with Shire decor and One Baby to Rule Them All banner
I was excited when the new year started, began strong with my February series. Then life outside my writing stepped in.
Last Christmas, my daughter and her hubby announced they were pregnant. Two weeks later they informed us he had gotten a job in central Florida, four to five hours north of us. Really? You tell me I’m to be a grandma then you tell me you’re moving away?
Don’t worry, they moved with our blessing. They are definitely better off where they are now. But yeah, it’s painful that they are no longer ten minutes down the road. In February we helped move them, and I stayed behind to help my pregnant daughter get her house in order. The day after my husband and younger daughter Shannon got back home, he got the call that his mother had passed away. She’d been sick, but we thought she was on the mend.
March went by in a bit of a blur. On the writing side, I had finished dictating my book into the computer and was finally editing and sending chapters for critique.
In April we held a baby shower for Meagan. I have fun planning those types of events, but I put a bit of extra stress on myself. That’s just how I operate. It turned out great. But I allowed myself to take a month off from blogging so I could concentrate on the shower. (See pics here.)
In May, I was full throttle into editing my book and gave myself another month off.
Then came June. Our grandson was scheduled to make his appearance on the 21st, and Shannon and I were packed and ready to head up there on the 11th. We were having a leisurely breakfast that Sunday when…surprise! Around 9 o’clock, my son-in-law Rob called to say Meagan was in labor and he was rushing her to the hospital. We could hear her in the background, laughing (because she wanted to put us at ease) and groaning with pain. Shannon and I hopped in the car. Thankfully, the bags were already packed, right?
Around 11 o’clock we got a text from Rob with a picture of the baby.
Wait. What? He’s already born? What a quick delivery. On one hand I was glad Meagan didn’t go through a long, painful labor and delivery. But slowly we discovered things hadn’t gone smoothly. Meagan had suffered a placental abruption, where the placenta pulls away from the wall of the uterus. Something that can be fatal to baby, and sometimes even to Mom. She had an emergency c-section. Explained why the baby was born so quickly.
Spoiler alert. God is good. That’s all the reason I have to give for the fact that mom and baby are fine. When Meagan’s doctor came to see her, he told us they were two minutes away from tragedy. He’s never at the hospital on Sundays. Not on purpose, anyhow. He “happened” to be there checking on another patient when Meagan came in. In a usual case, he would have taken at least twenty minutes to arrive after being called in. He said we could have lost them both if he hadn’t “happened” to be there. Of course, we know it wasn’t chance. God was in it.
The next few weeks were all about Meagan recuperating and getting used to having a needy baby in the house. No one got much sleep. Especially not Meagan and Rob, but Shannon and I were short on sleep, too. So, I hope I can be forgiven for not writing anything that month. Admittedly, there was plenty to write about. A new grandson. The miracle of his birth. But words eluded me.
July. . .I have no excuse other than mental and emotional exhaustion. And by this time, I had skipped so many months that one more didn’t seem to make much of a difference.
In August, with only a handful of chapters left in my book, I pushed hard with edits. Serge went to Brazil mid-month to bring his father back to visit with us at least through Christmas. I hadn’t seen my FIL in a year and wasn’t sure how my life might change, so I wanted to be finished with edits. Turns out, I have just as much time as before, so I could have gone easier on myself with those edits and actually gotten a post done.
Rowan smiling and chatting with Grandma in August
The rest of this year caught up with me in September. I felt weary. Of never-ending housework. Of missing my daughter and her family. Of forever miserable summer in south Florida. Of writing. Of editing. Of worrying about reader magnets and building platform. I reached the last chapter of my edits, and the inspiration went POOF! I tried to write through the block, but that just frustrated me more.
It’s October and I feel like the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel. (And that’s as close as I’ll get to the end-of-this-month’s celebrations the secular world loves so much.) I’m waiting for the moment when the bones stand and grow tendons and muscle and skin and come back to life. Maybe it’s here, in writing this post.
My husband told me to focus on gratitude. And I am SO grateful for God’s blessings this year. For my grandson, alive and healthy. That God spared my Meagan, and she is doing well. I’m grateful for cars in good condition which can get me to her house in a handful of hours.
I will forever miss my mother-in-law, who was more of a second mom to me than a MIL, but she’s no longer suffering and I will see her again someday. I am focusing on the joy of having had her in my life for 33 years, and of the wonderful son who wouldn’t be by my side if not for her.
And with that gratitude and more in my heart, I’m back. Hopefully soon I’ll have a book to offer you. 🙂
Rowan with Great Grandpa Lopes at the end of September
