SPRING!!!!

Yep....after lots of beautiful snow and a hard freeze, I am betting that spring is here to stay!!! So...I planted my flower beds, (which have been a barren wasteland), and am going to plant my very prolific garden (which takes up half of our already small backyard!) in hope and faith that the North Wind will not decide to blow this way again until around November!!!

Our house is coming along great. Our relationship seems to resemble our house. More compact, not so much junk, going through a total remodel, taking lots of time and patience to accomplish what we want and where we want to go, is a pain in the royal ass at times, but is very gratifying to see the results. Lots of hard work in both of these remodels. It has been very interesting and enlightening working on this house and our realationship at the same time and seeing how so MUCH of it comparable. When you plant new plants, you realize that you are doing the same with our realtionship. When you clean out the accumulated crap for a garage sale, we do the same cleaning out of the crap in the relationship. When you try to tweek the little annoying things in your house to make it a home, we do the same with eachother and ourselves tweeking and making just right and better and more appealing, to ourselves. Etc....It is coming on close to a year now folks and I can't wait for May 1st to be here and gone. We are reminded every single day of what last years upheaval cost us. We talk about it, we cry about it, we forgive about it, we try to forget some of the things about it, but we will never rid ourselves of the scars that remain. It was a major transforming blow but neither of us would trade it for all the world would have to offer us. The tragedy of the past is becoming the stepping stones to our future. We could not be where we are today without it. And just exactly where is it, you ask, that we ARE today? Well, I don't think you have that much time to read....but in a Readers Digest version, we are free. Free to be the people we lost or never had become. Free to love the way it was intended to be......respecting one another and our individual opinions....caring for the other more than ourselves.....mindful of the others feelings and thoughts (important notice: you must KNOW those before you can be mindful of them)......tenderly sacrificing....ever mindful and always aware totally of the hell we lived in and the the heaven we both desire to attain. Not picture perfect, but I swear....I only dreamed that life would be this good. I even ask Rick at times if this is real.....he is different, but I am different too. I can be strong and not bitchy. I can have an opinion without it always having to be right. I can make it on my own if need be. I can admit when I am wrong. I can live and not fear the next move from my husband. I can breathe and grow inside my own soul. We have a long way to go, but we have come so far in such a short time... God has blessed us. That is the meaning of "blessing"....doing more than would be humanly possible. Like Ricks counselor told him...."Don't push the river, it will flow by itself". We are not pushing, we are living and flowing and learning about each other, God and ourselves. It has exceeded my hopes, and that, for a dreamer like me, is saying a lot.

So think of us on the 1st of May.....it was a true Mayday last year, but this year, it will be a different May 1st...one with flowers hopefully.