It’s been quite a winter! I love winter! I love the cold and snow. I love the coziness of a fire and hot tea and hot chocolate. I have always been sad to see the forced slowness of winter, giving way to the hurried rush of spring and summer. Until this winter.

This winter has kicked my ass!!

It has been a long, hard winter. Between jobs and life changes, illness and injuries, and the over abundance of ice, it has been a slippery slope of what felt like months of failure.

In February, Matthew had an interview where I worked long before kids. The phone interview went OK, and he was asked to come in for a formal interview. Fast forward and the interview was a lot shorter than he expected it to be, and we didn’t know how to take it.

A few days later he had a missed called (on a Friday night at 8pm) from them. What the heck? He called the next day and it was a few hours before they called him back offering him the position. Everything fell into place, and he started the beginning of March.

Through the whole of February and March we have been under a constant state of sickness. I don’t think I’ve been consistently feeling well for more than a few days since Christmas. The kids had a bout of strep in February, when they were on break, and we soon discovered that Henry was SEVERELY allergic to amoxicillin: Full body rash.

We thought everyone was on the mend, but Avelyn kept complaining about a stuffiness, and sometimes pain, in her right ear. I finally took her to the doctor. She was fully convinced that she was just going to go through life partially deaf in one ear (the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree of dramatics). Another ear infection.

Then Monday morning James and Elanor woke up complaining about throats, I looked and we’re back to treating kids for strep again. We can’t win. I told Matthew next year we are going to a hot, sunny beach for a week on their February break.

And me? I’m glad for sunshine and warmer days.

In February we FINALLY, after a full year of going to Albany for Drs appointments, scheduled my Diastasis Recti repair surgery for April 2nd! Of course, winter took it’s toll on me too.

In the Fall, I was right where I wanted to be. I was strong, I was at my ideal weight, all of it was right where I felt good going into surgery, but then insurance denied coverage and we had to start the process again.

Throw in my general mood this winter of feeling beaten down constantly, mentally and physically exhausted from doing and dealing with it all, and the ice, and I was not taking care of myself. I haven’t walked. I haven’t lifted. I’ve definitely not been eating right. And I’ve gained 10lbs. Not where I want to be.

At the beginning of March, I decided I was taking my life back and started lifting again and putting myself back on good eating habits, and as life would have it, I sat on the COUCH with my kids one afternoon and when I went to get up my back went into spasm.

This was nothing like I’ve EVER experienced. When I had my major back issues from the diastasis recti I could work through it, it hurt, don’t get me wrong, but I could manage.

This was something different. I couldn’t sit, I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t bend, I couldn’t walk. For 4 days I was unable to do anything other than lay in bed. It was muscles that abjectly REFUSED to do what I asked them to do. Talk about putting you behind!

Right now though, the sun is shining, the days are a touch warmer, there’s hope in our steps. We might just be making it through this winter after all.

“Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never is, but always to be blest. The soul, uneasy and confined from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.” -Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man, 1733