Welcome!

I really miss blogging.  I spend a lot of time on Facebook and could post even more than I do, but that indicates to me that I need a place to actually write.  Given that November is National Novel Writing Month, I thought maybe I'd try blogging again, as I don't have it in me to write a novel this year.  Plus I've been there and done that 3 times, so who really cares, right?  Anyway, I thought about using my old blog and starting that back up, but that really seems like my old life.  I've changed dramatically in the past 15 months, and while my former blog is an excellent source of memories and fun, I think it's time for a fresh start, starting with who I am now, in this moment, and moving forward.  I'll leave the old blog untouched and you can visit it any time at Kate, Katie, Susan, and Sue if you'd like to read it and remember the good old days.

So where are we now exactly?

1.  I've been widowed 15 months, nearly 16.  There are still days this is impossible to believe.  I do a TON of writing for my Writing our Grief group, and I hope part of the function of this blog will be to have a place to store that writing.  I miss Mike so much.  I miss his presence in our lives.  Leah and I just kind of rattle around this place. 

2.  Bucket List!!!  As most of you probably know, as I have told the story, I spent a good portion of the first year without Mike in bed, particularly the first six months.  I know the stuff you're going to read below doesn't indicate that, but I'd go in spurts of hyperactivity and then just take to my bed and feel sorry for myself or sleep through my days.  It became fairly apparent to me that if I kept up like this I was going to lose my daughter and lose my mind.  So I devised a bucket list of all the things that I would be really upset about not being able to do if I died suddenly tomorrow and also things that I just needed to start doing to "get my shit together".  I've accomplished maybe half.  Things like reconnecting with an old friend, taking Leah to Disney to meet Rapunzel, going backstage to meet a band I loved, getting out of the country, seeing the Pacific Ocean, saving our house, entering a competition and getting a haircut indicate everything from the sublime to the ridiculous is on that list.  I have a lot to do.  One of the biggies is going to England.  One of the small things is learning to bake a cake from scratch.  This bucket list has a two year time frame from when Mike died to completion. In the support groups I used to attend, they all said year two is even worse than year one.  I find that now I am able to get through my days far easier, but there are still moments when I have big struggles with my loss and those moments are sharper and more painful than before.  I have cried far harder this year than I did last year, to be sure.  The bucket list has helped me tremendously.  And the ideas contained therein have helped me tremendously as well.  It's nice to have goals and have a place to put a picture of yourself completing them.

3.  School.  I'm more than halfway through my master's program.  I still can't quite see the finish line.  Last month, I seriously considered quitting.  It is exhausting and it is hard.  But thankfully my friends rallied around me and refused to let me give up.  Thus this week alone I have 4 papers to write.  Two are done, mercifully.  Looking ahead, I need to consider an internship, but the idea of commuting in this area makes me want to cry.  Even if it's only in the short term.  But I do know that I need to get some experience before I go job hunting, and an internship would be a great way to do that. 

4.  House.  I have a lot of projects around the house that need doing.  I have 4 rooms that need painting, a guy is coming today to look at the roof, and I need to get the old contractor out here to finish fixing the downstairs ceiling that he started repairing just before Mike died and then never finished in the excitement thereafter.  I need to sell off our freezer and do something about our kitchen/dining room and the upstairs bathroom.  Big money projects, and I don't have big money.  I also need to empty and declutter most of the house, take a lot of crap to Goodwill, especially with Christmas coming and Leah getting even more 'stuff'. I have a new vacuum cleaner and have started taking a much more active role in housekeeping and maintenance.  I don't like most of it, but I like living in a clean house and I can't let the place decay like a modern day Miss Havisham.  So I have a schedule to follow now and it works out just fine.

Leah also really went nuts over getting a cat/kitten, so I got her a kitten from a lady on Craig's List.  Just a week later, a stray wandered in.  Leah named them Cuckoo and Dodo, and they have taken over the joint.  They are a lot of fun and have helped with my stress levels tremendously.  Unlike the previous cats who peed all over everything and fought constantly, these two are fun and get along very well.  

5.  Travel.  I have done a TON of travel this past year.  Starting with our trip to Disney in January, then Austin, Atlanta, Ecuador/Colombia/El Salvador, Chicago twice, Rhode Island and New York, and Myrtle Beach.  We've been everywhere.  I wish I had blogged about each trip, as each one was really, really special.  Taking Leah to Disney was something I didn't think I'd be able to do after Mike died, but as I thought about it, I knew Mike would want me to go through with it.  And we had the best time ever.  It got crazy and convoluted for a while as to whether or not my mother would go, and eventually she didn't, so I changed my reservations around and we stayed on Disney property for the first time.  It was quite an incredible experience, and it felt great and was very convenient as a single parent traveling alone.  Austin was great, I really liked it there and I got to reconnect with my dad's brother and his family whom I haven't seen in years.  Atlanta with Mike and Lesley is always fun, but it was extra special as we managed to plan to go coincidentally when Lesley became a naturalized citizen.  So we got to celebrate that and it was just amazing.  I don't know what I can say about the trip to South America.  There really aren't words to do it justice.  I was so excited to go and experience new things and new cultures.  I think Leah and I were the first members of my family to go to South America.  I wish things had worked out differently on a personal level, but I have no regrets about going and I don't think I would have changed anything.  It was awesome.  The two trips to Chicago were to reconnect with my friend Kyle, with whom I hadn't spoken in 10 years.  I took a chance and sent him an email in March, again as part of my bucket listy stuff, and I really didn't expect to hear back from him, but surprise surprise!  I happily did and next thing I knew, I was visiting him in Chicago.  And then I went back.  Chicago is amazing, it is easy, too easy, to imagine myself living there, especially now that my dear friend Joe and his partner Gregory are moving there this month.  Kyle was  awesome too.  So I'm glad I took that chance.  The annual summer trek to Rhode Island and New York was pretty good as well.  It was very meaningful to take Leah up to Breton Point to fly kites like Mike and I used to do, and to show her all our old stomping grounds, as well as make sure she remains connected to Mike's family.  Going home is always a lot of fun.  And though I've been actively avoiding Myrtle Beach, I finally felt in September that I absolutely HAD to go, and found one open week when we COULD go.  So I booked us a trip and my mom went too.  I was so glad to be back.  I felt so peaceful there and I could physically feel Mike's presence around us.  It was wonderful to show Leah all the things that we had done, all the places we had gone, but also to do new things with her.  She LOVED the Myrtle Beach Sky Wheel, as did I.

I feel kind of bummed that I don't have anything planned until next April now.  I will go to NY on November 16th for a day to complete a major bucket list item, going to the Strand Bookstore.  I was thinking about making a weekend of it, but then I decided instead I would splurge on a ticket to a Broadway show while I'm there, so I'm just going up and back in a day.  I'm crazy excited about it, but it's still 10 days away.  Then I have no plans to go anywhere for a while.  So I need ideas and plans!  Mike and I traveled a LOT, but we didn't go a lot of new places or try a lot of new things.  He was quite set in his ways and doing new things required a lot of careful planning and execution--our trip to Las Vegas, I had a 3 page itinerary for goodness sakes!  Things feel a bit looser and freer now.  It also requires me to conquer my fear of traveling alone sometimes, which is good.  I like that I am fostering a more adventurous spirit!

5.  Here in the community, I continue to be busy.  I was just re-elected to a third term on the board for the choral society.  I am singing in our annual Christmas concert on December 15th, the first concert I've done in over a year.  I've come to the conclusion that I don't enjoy participating in the gala each spring, and babysitting is getting expensive, so I'm going to stop doing that and just try to sing in the summer and Christmas concerts each year, both of which I enjoy tremendously.  I keep busy when not singing by working on the silent auction committee, stage managing, working on fundraising stuff, recruitment, publicity, and social networking.  It's very busy and productive and I feel passionate about doing it.  If I ever don't, I'll simply stop!

I started an Anglophiles club here in town.  So far we have just a few people participating and the most success I've had has been in the book club portion of things, where I have 3 regulars.  Supposedly in January quite a few people will attend as we are reading Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island.  I'm trying to alternate so that on odd numbered months we will read non-fiction culture studies and on even numbered months we will read literature.  The rest of this year we are reading literature, though, so we're a bit off track.  So far, we've read The Anglo Files by Sarah Lyall, Austen Land by Shannon Hale, and Below Stairs by Margaret Powell.  This month we are reading Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence, next month is A Christmas Carol by Dickens, and then on into 2014.

One of the biggest changes is that I've joined a church.  Most of the people I know here belong to churches and many have actively tried to get me to come and/or join their churches.  I have a long and varied past in religion, and I think  I have long asked questions about things that most people tend to take on faith as a matter of course.  I think questioning long held beliefs is a good thing.  When we lived in Boston, Mike and I were active members of First Parish Watertown, a Unitarian Universalist association.  I looked up the UU when we moved to Fredericksburg, but at the time, they were meeting way across town and I had no interest in driving the whopping 15 minutes across town that would be required to participate.  Earlier this year, I decided I would make the drive, that I needed community and a place to get away from the pressures of the well-intentioned missionaries out there who were after me to come to church, to pray for Mike, etc. etc.  It turned out the UU had built a new church just 2 streets over from our house.  So I started going and on my first Sunday there discovered that my grief counselor was a member, one of the photographers from the newspaper who I know from different media stories about me and Mike goes there, and someone I met through Hospice also goes there.  So good enough for me, three quality individuals I admire and respect attend and I have been a loyal attendee ever since.  This year they started a religious education class for pre-schoolers, which has helped Leah make some sense of the different messages she has gotten from going to VBS and from attending an Episcopalian pre-school.  It is important to me that someday she feels she has the freedom to make up her own mind about what she believes and I believe the UUFF is the place to give her the tools to do so.  Her father died an atheist, and I have changed from a theist to a deist.  It'll be interesting to see where Leah's journey takes her.

6.  Culture.  I've busily partaken of cultural activities as well.  My mom and I have now been to see Les Mis on stage twice, first at Broadway in Richmond and second here in Fredericksburg.  The show in Fredericksburg is still playing and honestly, you can't believe it's dinner theater here.  It is truly Broadway quality and absolutely amazing.  I took Leah to see Mary Poppins at Broadway in Richmond as well.  I didn't care for that one too much, but the sets were incredible. I've seen Barenaked Ladies twice in concert this year and have backstage passes and tickets to see them again in Kingston in January, we went backstage to meet and greet Train as well as Leah's beloved Fresh Beat Band who we will see again in November.  I've now been to a Cubs game, gone to a couple of comedy shows, seen some movies which I suppose doesn't seem like THAT big of a deal but there was a time when I had no interest in anything, so having an interest in movies again is a huge deal.  I've been reading again, watching a lot of BritComs, and of course in 10 short days, I'll be going to see PIPPIN!!!!!!!!  My favorite Broadway show ever.  I'm excited it's enjoying a revival but nervous as to whether I'll like it, particularly without Ben Vereen and with a Pippin who wears boots.

7.  Health.  I've been working on my mental and physical health a lot.  I attend a weekly support group called Writing Our Grief at the local hospice.  It has helped me get a handle on my grief and express it in constructive ways in a group of people who understand me and what I'm going through.  I love our leader, Gloria ( you can read about her here ) and I love the people in the group.  Many of us are widows and widowers, but there are quite a few who are there because they have lost fathers and mothers.  Leah and I also attend a family group once a month with a different Hospice organization, which gives us time to come together over what happened and bond in new and interesting ways.  She also gets to spend two hours with other kids there, all of whom have lost their fathers, and know that she is not unique or alone in her situation.

I have a new primary care physician now.  I spent 10 years with my doctor in Fairfax, and I really, really loved that practice a lot, but when Blue Cross and I got into it and Blue Cross started demanding refunds from all my physicians in the past year, that practice's business office let me know I was no longer welcome.  So I did some looking around and found a doctor here in town.  I had an appointment a week ago and really, really liked both the doctor and the nurse.  I have had some health concerns over the past year, specifically I found a lump.  I kept this to myself.  I live in great fear that something will happen to me and Leah will be left an orphan and that the trauma of that will do terrible things to her.  So I had the lump checked out and mercifully it is nothing to be concerned about.  But I did have some scary moments over that one!!!  Thankfully all is well.

I obviously put on a good chunk of weight after Mike died, and am happy to say I've lost about 20 pounds of it thus far.  I'm trying to ease into clean eating--we've replaced a lot of chicken mcnuggets with salads and homemade soups.  Finding the lump also made me more aware of chemicals in the house, so I've started making my own detergents and using green cleaners.  Things just smell clean, not chemically, and my sense of smell and taste is much improved. 

8.  Creativity.  I took some art classes earlier this year.  I'm converting Mike's old office into an art studio.  I need to start with paint and then get some shelving and build a work surface.  I have tons of ideas from Pinterest both for the space and for projects.  Last year for Christmas, my secret Santa gave me a gorgeous new sewing machine and I haven't had anywhere to set it up.  That is priority one.  I've also had a lot of fun with canvas this year, altering it, painting it, etc.  Papercrafting is probably my milieu. I love working with paper.  I've also done a lot of writing, baking, cooking, and singing.  Better to be creative than destructive.

So I think that's everything and now you are up to date.  My goal is to write something every other day for a month, so check back in two days to see if I'm any good at blogging any more! :D