Hugs, Tears, Gifts and Love

Hi everyone..  first i wanted to say thank you to each of you for your loving and supportive replies to my last post. It truly warmed my heart and meant so much to me to have such support from you. We may not know each other’s faces, or know the sound of each other’s voices, but believe me when I tell you, it has meant something real to me.

I’ve been back in Dallas a week. I’ve had more rock bottom melt downs than you can count this past month, but especially coming back to Dallas. I tried to sleep in my apartment alone for 2 nights before finally calling a friend to stay over and then calling my Aunt to come down to stay with me for a week. I’ve tried to do things on my own my whole life – it’s definitely a new and odd experience to not even be able to be in my own apartment alone for more than a few hours. I am so thankful for the people who have been here for me along this journey so far… and the ones that are to come.

I will not leave you without a few positives though – as one of the things he loved most about me was my ability to find rainbows in even the darkest storms… a few highlights from my first and most horrible week in Dallas…

Succulent Succulents
My team at work sent me this gorgeous succulent basket and a great big amazing cards that made me cry buckets. Thank you all, now I just hope I don’t kill the poor things with my brown thumb!

The Girls At The Office
The first day I went back to the office… there were a few girls (you know who you are ladies) that surrounded me with love, tears, and hugs. We broke down right there in the middle of an ocean of cubicles together. They even gave me their lunches and snacks, and brought me water and anything else I needed so that I didn’t even have to get up from my desk. And some of these girls I don’t even work with on a daily basis, in fact I really don’t work with them at all directly. Knowing they are there has made each day at work a little easier to handle. Thank you ladies.

PASTA!
My second day back at work, one of the ladies in my group gave me some leftover pasta from Olive Garden. I had not eaten pasta in over a month. It was penne, with a light red cream sauce and shrimp, and it was the most heavenly thing. My taste buds were singing! Thank you Linda.

Hearts for my Heart
I finally opened up a box of cards and other goodies from work today that I had not gone through yet… and was overwhelmed by all the lovelies. One of the groups next door to me made me individual little needle felted hearts with their names each tagged onto them! Best of all, they came inside a lovely little felting craft box, complete with a bunch of colorful wool to make new creations with. So many little hearts just brightened my heart. Thank you ladies (and Montey!)

I’ve yet to find the creator of this adorable little bird I got from the office as well! There was no tag and I suspect the card got away from him, but he will be sure to cheer up my desk when I take him back up there tomorrow! He stands about 7 or 8 inches tall!I love his little feet. Will soon find out the maker and update here.

A Military Memorial
One of Drew’s friends on the gun forum wrote to me privately after the accident and wanted to send me a ceremonial flag in his memory. I cried when he offered this.. as I know how much it would have meant to Drew. Although Drew was not in the military, but he had deep respect for our military and I know had he not had a back injury, he had planned to fly for our country. His friend also included a military medal for good conduct. Not knowing much about military medals, I looked it up. This is a medal that is given for 3 years of good conduct, as well as to any soldier killed in the line of duty. Thank you Karl – you are a good man and friend.

Well, that is going to wrap it up for tonight. Not every post will be positive… but I was glad to have the energy tonight to post one. Again thank you to everyone for the gifts, cards, kinds words, support, tears, hugs, calls, food, and for everything in between. I love you all. <3

The Day the Internet Found Me

Every blogger out there fantasizes about this moment… when somehow the little blog you’ve been pouring yourself into suddenly gets noticed and explodes all over the internet – even if temporarily. Most of you are likely reading now because you saw my last post about my boyfriend’s recent accomplishment’s on the Freshly Pressed page of WordPress. I would like to share with you how this weekend went down…

We had a party Friday night with some close friends to celebrate all the goodness of the past week… hooray! Lots of bowling, laser tag and air hockey – as we are just giant 12 year olds around here. In the morning, as Andrew went off to work I stumbled sleepily to my desk to catch up on emails and the latest happenings of Facebook and as usual, visit the blog and see if maybe I’ve broken my record of 95 visits in a day. I’m staring at those status bars thinking to myself “hmmm that’s so weird, the one for yesterday is like disproportionately huge compared like ALL the past weeks.. what is wrong with this thing?” *refreshing page several times* Then I rollover the bar of epicness and the visit number 1,274 shows up…. whaaaaaaaa!

I then go into a fury of checking email and comments and likes and followers – whole crap! How has this happened?! Thank you WordPress for showing me how people found my blog! Freshly Pressed?! What! OMG *girly noises and dancing around the house in pj’s scaring the cats… this goes on for some time* And then I realized I have to wait ALL DAY to tell Andrew about this coolness and how tons of people are sharing in his achievement since I can’t call him at work. Baaah! So there I sat in the quietude of the morning with this thing that felt so big and expanding and connected that it was about to explode the room. And my favorite part of this was that it happened not because of something I did – but because of someone’s story that I shared… and that wonderfully interconnectedness of his story and mine and the whole journey that has meant to much to us.

By the end of the weekend our little post and the blog overall had over 10,000 visits (TEN THOUSAND!). That is a number of people so inconceivably huge-tastic to be connected to for even an iota of time that my only reaction was really just to laugh in lighthearted joy and utter amazement.

Now of course I realize this won’t last – and that probably everyone who’s even been on Freshly Pressed writes a blog entry just like this one afterwards… but do I care if I sound ridiculous? Nope. Unapologetically dramatic is how I roll. I really have no clue if anything like this will ever happen again and I’m just going to bask in it fully and outwardly – with all of you!

So THANK YOU to all of you wonderful shining people who took the time to visit, read and comment… to follow, reblog, and like. It has taken several days, but we’ve read each and every comment you left, and have gotten to see so many cool new blogs we would have never otherwise found! You made a special event in the lives of two people down in Texas even more incredible with all of your kindness! And to think, I almost didn’t post this because I thought it might be cheesy or no one would like it. Just goes to show that anytime we doubt ourselves we should really just take the chance and go for it… because you never know where it will go. =)

All my best!
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Thank you!

Oh, and I believe a little thanks is in order to…

Darin Martin, Becky Winslow, Scott Moore, Tammy Howard, Micaela Wilson, Betsy Widmark Holt, Mary Vodicka, Andrew Ridge, Cat Martinez, Ginger Green, Willie Baronet

Thank you ALL for submitting themes to me these past few weeks! I received over 80 themes altogether, including some great ones like “things in your trash”, “saying goodbye”, “vintage aviation”, “androgyny” and “dinosaurs and tuna salad”! I’ve compiled the themes onto cards, and everything is ready to go now!

 

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