Even the storm that hit yesterday afternoon didn’t succeed in cooling the temperature. I don’t know what it reached – 32 or 33 degrees C maybe – with so much humidity that even when I sat completely still, beads of sweat tickled my skin as it ran in streams down the centre of my back.
Today has been so much cooler. You would think by looking at the ominous clouds in the photo that it rained all day – it didn’t. In fact, I don’t think it has rained at all in the last 24 hours.
My apologies for not replying to comments or visiting other blog sites these past few days. I have been otherwise occupied by various different commitments, including grand-puppy sitting, grandchild sitting, and packing up my kitchen. Yes, the time has finally arrived – my old kitchen will be removed on Wednesday morning in preparation for the installation of a sparkly new kitchen. I’m so excited!
Finding places to store the contents of my kitchen cupboards has been a challenge. It’s only through rearranging cupboards in other rooms around the house that I am finding places for everything. It’s nearly 10pm now, and after adding today’s post I am going back to kitchen sorting again for half an hour before going to bed. 🙂
As the year 2019 begins, my family is happy, which is all that I have wished for.
This time last year though, I had a different story to tell, although it wasn’t a situation I wished to talk about at the time. On the day of my grandson’s first birthday in July, my daughter-in-law ceremoniously decided she was leaving, moving one-thousand kilometres away, to live with her parents. My son had two choices – stay here and lose his son, or follow his wife, which was really no choice at all. Obviously, he left too.
To be married in March 2019.
For the next six months, I didn’t see my grandson. My son, however, couldn’t cope with being away from his family. He was torn between his birth family, and the one he had created. So in desperation, he tried living and working here during the week, and flying home to his other family for the weekend.
It was a massive strain on him. He was miserable. And I knew there were problems in his marriage.
Fun for the family, Christmas 2018.
As Christmas approached, I felt absolutely no enthusiasm. I felt my youngest son’s pain, and at times I felt as if my heart was bleeding for him. Consequentially, I didn’t buy any Christmas gifts, I gave my family money and asked them to spend it as they pleased.
The Christmas tree looked so bare without the usual array of gifts, but when my family arrived that situation changed as brightly packaged gifts began to mount beneath the tree.
Meeting the right person at the right time! ❤ Christmas 2018.
During the afternoon, we all went outside for a photo session. My heart wasn’t in it though, my son would be missing from the photos. It would be a permanent reminder of the unfortunate split in our family.
At one point, my eldest daughter and her husband handed each family member an envelope, instructing us to open our envelopes together. I imagined I would read my card later, once I had gone inside and had put my reading glasses on. But that all changed when I took out the card, which read –
Jingle bells, jingle bells,
jingle all the way …
Oh what fun
It is to say,
A baby is on the way!
Due to arrive
August 2018.
I was going to be a Nana again!Â
Many reasons to smile again …
Fast forward to Christmas 2018 – My youngest son is home again. His ex had chosen another significant day to ceremoniously (again!!) announce the end of their marriage on their third wedding anniversary. But this year, he’s smiling again.
My auntie dunked me!
My boy is back.
My family are all friendly with one another again, just like they used to be (before the x joined the family).
Aunt Em loves me!
And most importantly, my grandson was here to help his four-month-old baby cousin, Aurora Ebony, celebrate her first Christmas. 🙂
Aurora’s Mummy and Daddy getting into the spirit of Christmas.
I think the photos speak louder than any words I could choose.
And in 2019, we have two weddings to look forward to! My eldest son is to be married in March, followed by my youngest daughter who will be married in April. ❤
Christmas 2018 photo session. 🙂
A year ago, I couldn’t write about my life, or my family. This year, we have everything to celebrate!
I’ll be Flower Girl at my Aunt Em’s wedding in April!
I wanted to share this brief version of the story of my 2018 to let anyone who is suffering know that nothing stays the same. Change is inevitable. And there is always hope for a better future.
Uncle Ben and Braxton.
For 2019, I wish everyone a year of happiness, a year of joy, good health and prosperity. A year where even if your life isn’t going completely to plan, know that there is always hope for a brighter future. xx
Watching the New Year’s Eve fireworks on TV with Nana and Poppy. NYE 2018.Baby Aurora, New Year’s Day 2019.
During the last month I have spent more days away from home than I have there, an unusual occurrence for me being the home-body that I am.
On the twenty-eighth of October I began a ten-day trip south with my youngest daughter and when I have the time to sort through and edit almost five-hundred photos I took, I will share a few photos here.
Less than two weeks after returning home I headed north, this time to attend the wedding of my eldest daughter who married her long-time boyfriend in a gorgeous beach ceremony.
After returning home from the wedding, and with just enough time to complete and submit a university assignment and catch up on some work, I received news that I had been dreading – my brother-in-law, who had been ill for some years, had taken a turn for the worse. I had to be with my sister.
My big sister means the world to me and I have often cursed the geographic distance between us. Knowing that my brother-in-law, a man I have known all of my life, had just days, maybe even hours to live, had me packing my bags and heading south again.
On Friday night, after a six-hour drive, I arrive just in time to join my family at the hospital. We cried, hugged one another, laughed as we remembered the good times, and shed tears over the loss of a beloved family member.
The funeral is Friday and I will stay with my sister until after we say our final goodbyes to her husband. She has never lived alone before and the days and months ahead will be a time when she will have to make adjustments to the new life which has been forced upon her. Thankfully, she will not have to face the future completely alone – a beautiful girl with unruly curls and floppy ears will keep her company.
“The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?” – Edgar Allan Poe
Change is inevitable, but for the last month of the year I am hoping for a calm, peaceful time at home. The twenty-eighth October to the twenty-eighth of November this year has been a memorable month, for many reasons.
In My World 