Tonight's picture was taken in March of 2009. It was a big day in the pediatric units. There was a ribbon cutting ceremony for the child life playroom and Mattie was invited to cut the ribbon. The playroom meant a great deal to Mattie. Note that when Mattie began treatment at the hospital there was NO playroom. Instead, children gathered in the hallways and it was hard to have any sort of event. But while on treatment, the playroom was built. It was a God send to all of us, as it gave us a place to escape from the hospital room. Mattie was surrounded by Linda (his child life specialist), hospital leadership, and leadership from Toys R Us, who donated the playroom to the hospital.
Quote of the day: There is no timestamp on trauma. There isn't a formula that you can insert yourself into to get from horror to healed. Be patient. Take up space. Let your journey be the balm. ~ Dawn Serra
I truthfully can't make up what I face in any given day. Today was another winner. By 10am, I felt like I went ten rounds. At 8am, while making breakfast, I looked outside the kitchen window and immediately saw the garden fountain wasn't on. This fountain is on a timer, and goes on religiously at 7:30am. It is one of the many features that came with the house that I love. I love watching the birds who frequent this water supply throughout the year. I keep a bird bath warming coil in the fountain over the winter, so that I can keep the feature running without freezing. When I saw that the fountain did not turn on, I panicked. I ran to the circuit breaker to see if something tripped. It hadn't. Then I went outside to see if the GFCI had to be reset. Nope, it was fine. So then I worried that either the pump stopped working or something was wrong with the timer. Before going right over the deep end, I thought this through! What if the reason the fountain did not go on was because we just lost an hour due to daylight savings time? So I decided to wait until 8:30am. Sure enough, at 8:30am, the timer triggered and the fountain started. I viewed that as a blessing.
At 8:30am, the crew to fix our stone walkway showed up, along with my landscaper. I truly rely on Ritchie, my landscaper, for all the problems outside of the house. He is an honest, kind, and professional person. He understands all that I am balancing and never tries to upsell me on anything. Instead works with me. What he said today was that most people couldn't handle managing this house by themselves, on top of everything else I juggle. He wanted me to know that I am doing a great job. I appreciated the feedback and support.
Any case, Ritchie talked to me about all the front bushes. He agrees the tops got winter burned, but down at the base of the shrubs is green. So hopefully in a month or so they will bounce back to life. Therefore, I am in a holding pattern, and I hoping they return to their health, so I do not have to replace them. He told me NOT to cut the brown stuff back! Meanwhile the stone guys were here for about 8 hours today, managing all the stones that popped up making the walkway unsafe.
The crew needed me to turn on the hoses, so they could mix cement. The hoses were shut off for the winter. I wasn't aware that the hoses needed to be turned on today and really did not allot the time for this, as I had to go upstairs to wake my dad, shower him, and get him to his memory care program. But my schedule was put on pause because I had to go to the basement and turn on the water supply lines to all the hoses. Here's where the fun started.
No comments:
Post a Comment