Happy 2022!

2021 was….interesting… and certainly didn’t end calmly for our family. As the new year starts, I am taking time to reflect on the past and set intentions for the upcoming year.

During the month of November, Elliott was getting casted for his CP and was rocking it, per usual. We have been continually blown away by Colorado Children’s Hospital and their staff. Elliott looked forward to picking out a new color cast every week & was always excited to go back and see his doctors. His body adapted very quickly to the casting process so he didn’t have to do anymore than three weeks worth before we started physical therapy and waited for his new AFO brace to come in.

Then, one week before Thanksgiving- we had to make an Emergency room run, but this time for Harper. We were at our friends house when Harper touched the fireplace that had no protection on the glass. She ended up with severe second degree burns on the palms of both of her hands. The only way to protect her hands from infection while the skin blistered over and the new skin grew in, was to cast her. Elliott had just picked pink for his final cast color, and it seemed only appropriate that they matched, so Harper got pink too. This whole ordeal was so ridiculous that it became comical. We turned it into a joke and called our kids the “casted crew.”

Two kids, three casts, one roof. Absolute madness.

Luckily for Harper- in less than two weeks, her hands were completely healed and Elliott was able to get his final cast off the same week, so the ‘casted crew’ was relatively short lived and we were back in action by mid-December, just in in time for Christmas.

Over the course of the next few weeks, we celebrated Christmas early in Colorado Springs with Nathan’s side of the family & then hosted my parents, our friend Shanky & my cousin Clay in our house for Christmas. It was jam packed and lots of fun all around.

I decided to throw a pretty big Christmas Soirée, and as fun as it was, it turns out it was a Covid super spreader event for the ominous variant that is so rampant around the world right now. So Covid took each one of our family members out, one by one, over the course of the week after Christmas, along with a handful of party guests as well.

As if quarantining with seven sick people wasn’t chaotic enough, it was also during this time that the massive Marshall Fire took place less than three miles away from our house. We watched with anticipation waiting to see what the winds would do next and which direction the fire was headed. We packed up our house in a fury trying to grab important items; praying that the house which we moved into less than 6 months ago, wouldn’t turn to ash.

Our neighborhood remained right on the evacuation line for the night and the wind never turned the fires in our direction–however over 1,000 other homes were not so lucky. As I sat in my bedroom and watched the white snow fall less than 24 hours after this horrific fire- I felt I had a renewed sense of gratitude & purpose.

There were thousands of people who woke up the morning of December 30th with no reason to think that they would lose absolutely everything they own. Two houses that Nathan and I put offers on (prior to getting our current house) burned to the ground. Why? I can’t help but continue to ask myself why? Why others? Why not us? When you are faced with something of this magnitude right in your backyard- it’s impossible not to ask these questions and also want to do something about it.

The community has come together in really beautiful ways to help the victims and businesses of the fires and I am also going to share some opportunities here to give back, if you feel so inclined.

In addition to giving back, I am also going into this new year with a perspective shift that I desperately needed.

I was harshly reminded this holiday season that nothing in life is guaranteed. In today’s climate, it’s easy to complain and find most things challenging. It’s easy for the heaviness of life to take over.

Fight against that.

Donate where you can. Journal when you feel motivated. Go to a yoga class or sit silently and take deep breaths. Make a bubble bath. Scream. Pour yourself a glass of wine or warm tea. Remind yourself that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger & that there can be blessings in the mess, if you choose to see them.

So, I am going into the new year with the attitude of gratitude for absolutely everything I have and the people in my life. I am choosing to turn sadness and exhaustion into renewed energy & motivation.

I challenge you to do the same.

We have made it to 2022, people. Let’s make it a year to remember, for the better!