It seems like it has truly been forever since I last posted to this poor little blog.  Our lives have been turned a bit upside in the last several months and work has been a bit ridiculous and the baby has been especially whiny.  So any and all time has been delegated to one of these three categories, leaving my poor blog to float along downstream.  I do apologize, but the turmoil currently existing takes precedent. I have also been trying to get a smidgen of self-care in as I can, when I can, so that has taken up the remaining teeny tiny amounts of my free time.  However, I do have some awesome plans and things that I really want to do in the new year for the blog and for myself, as soon as I figure out how to fit it into our current life!

Nonetheless, I felt an update was necessary (so that you all know we are still alive over here in our little studio).  The biggest thing dominating our lives is that Jamie had his leg amputated below the knee two days before Christmas.  It created the most Un-Christmas year I have probably ever had.  We didn't even put up the Christmas tree.

Jamie has been fighting an infection in his foot that started as a cracked callus on his heel and ended up not healing.  He has been through a number of measures to attempt to correct the problem from stints to IV infusions of antibiotics to hyperbaric treatments to multiple surgeries, until finally they found on that the infection had spread into the bone.  Thus, the decision to have his leg amputated.  He is currently doing physical and operational therapies at a facility, which is a whole other issue in our lives that we face throughout 2015.  While he recovers and learns to maneuver, Atty's grandparents are helping to watch her while I'm at work during the day.

Unfortunately, it is the time of the year that I haven't the slightest idea when I will be off work.  We have inventory upcoming and merchandising issues that need resolves so I have been working funky hours and often very long hours.  Which will probably continue until early March.  Thankfully, my family is very supportive, cooperative, and extremely helpful with my daughter.  I have no idea what I would do with them right now.  Jamie typically takes care of her while I am at work, so my crazy scheduling hasn't been a big issue since she was born.  With him focusing on getting better, I'm grateful to have people in my life that can and are willing to help out.  Plus we have arranged for her to start Daycare soon, so that will help as well!


On a lighter note, watching Atizle grow, learn, discover, and change the last several months has just simply been amazing.  She is so independent.  She wants to feed herself, play by herself, and pick out her own clothes to wear.  She loves to play with her kitchen that she got for Christmas.  She loves dancing and has now added spinning in circles to her sway side-to-side dance routine.  She can't get enough of anything musical or involving music.  She is an outdoors girl all the way.  No matter how hot or cold it might be, she wants to walk the yard and the driveway at every opportunity.  She also knows that shoes mean byebye and that without shoes she can't go "out".


She's super smart, but doesn't want to show it until she's mastered a skill.  Which cracks me up.  She will make animal noises to Jamie, like a cow says "moo" and an owl says "hoo" and trains go "woo woo".  But not to me, and not if I'm in the room.  I know she can say a lot more words than I ever hear her say.  In fact, even though her first word was "Momma", I haven't heard her say it in several months until last night when I put her to bed (and she decided she didn't want to be in bed) and she said "Momma I want up" in her super tired, whiny voice.  She really, really enjoys reading books over and over and over.  She also just started to learn how to knock, so she will knock on every possible surface with doors, obviously, being her favorite.


Some of the other developmental things she has going on currently are teeth.  She is getting in some of her back teeth (which means all four at once).  Every single time she has gotten new teeth it has been the whole set.  Which makes life miserable for quite some time, because she is hurting.  She is 17 months old now.  She is learning to use a spoon and fork.  Sometimes she tries and sometimes she just wants fed.  Her preference is still to just eat finger food.  She is still drinking whole milk, and she especially loves turkey and Gerber raviolis.  She hates to sleep anywhere but in her own bed (although we have been struggling with sleeping in the bed for the past week - I have no idea where this came from and it is making ME miserable, because she won't go to sleep even though she's exhausted).  We have also upgraded to a forward facing carseat, because her legs were getting to cramped in the rear facing seat (and she meets weight guidelines).  She is wearing clothes anywhere between 12 month and 2T, depending on what it is.  Yet, she always loses her socks somehow (and then they disappear - she's really very anti-socks and shoes, though shoes get a pass because they mean "out").  So our little angel is growing fast and I'm struggling to just hang on as we navigate this rollercoaster of constantly changing routines (her doing, not ours, because what works one week doesn't always work the next) and development.


Which brings me to me.  I'm changing up the way I am documenting our lives this year, because I need to consider it a self-care act vs another to-do on the neverending list.  I'm going back to my art journaling roots and bringing the scrapbooking along for the ride.  Self-care has become a very big deal to me in the last several months.  I have always been a give it all kind of person, and I generally give it all to the people who need me first and foremost.  But my body and my mind have been screaming at me that I need to be more aware of myself, as well.  I am often forgotten or left until last on my list.  This causes more stress, especially when life is already stressful enough, and has the tendency to make my temper extremely short and my patience very low.  These things aren't good for the people I care about either, so I'm trying to really work on giving myself some ME time whenever possible.

I still haven't worked out what my word for the year is, because I have so many different directions that I want to move towards in 2015.  I also have lots of plans for this little space in the coming months.  One new feature will be a Book Club, which we will be starting soon with the Artist's Way by Julia Cameron.  Also, I will be explaining more about my documenting project for 2015 this month.  And I have January's Counterfeit Kit that I'm almost ready to share, so stay tuned and I'll be back soon!