This Perfectly Imperfect Life

I've been quiet here for the last month into December because our hearts are broken and I've had no words 💔  The Marine lost two of his brothers in November, one at the beginning of November, and one last week at the end of November, both to very different circumstances.  We are changed. That thing called "normal" may not be found again for a very long time. For now it's one day at a time, and hour at a time or one moment at a time when a day is too much. 

It's late July in my garden, and the Coneflowers are blooming away! I can't get enough of taking photos of them, every day, at different times of day, in different light. There aren't as many of them this year, so I'll have to be sure to save seeds and get them planted for next. Soon, the Zinnias will be blooming, and as the coneflowers wane, my focus will switch to them, and their colorful, happy faces. The late Summer and Autumn garden has always been my favorite! What's blooming in your garden now? #dirttherapy #summertime #gardenwalk #julygarden #summergarden #apartmentgarden #coastalgarden #inmygardentoday #simplepleasuresgreatestjoy #myperfectlyimperfectview #thisperfectlyimperfectlife 

Deadheading the roses on this cool & cloudy Friday morning. 🙌🏻 Usually it's a more peaceful time, but the family of squirrels living up in the maple tree was causing a ruckus most of the time I was out there with their shenanigans 🙄 So I found myself more annoyed than usual, but for me, deadheading & weeding are always a time for me to get things out of my system (like journaling, or prayer, or rearranging my bookshelves), as is much of my time in the garden, so it's never time wasted. What do you do to work things out, de-stress, or heal? Enjoy your day peeps!  #morningmotivation #gardenwalk #upheavalintorevival #rosechat #inmygardentoday #apartmentgarden #gardencritters #friday #june #junegarden #springgarden #fridayfavorites #booknerd #myperfectlyimperfectview #thisperfectlyimperfectlife 

Another dreary day! Surgery # 4 was this morning 🙈 You'd think by now I'd be used to this, but the jitters started yesterday! 😬🙏🏻 It was a two-parter: The stent is Out 🎉 and another kidney surgery. I'm actually already back in day-stay recovery. A bit 'three sheets to the wind' as it were 🤤😂 but so far so good. Praying this is the last surgery of this round 🙏🏻 Even though the day-stay staff, OR staff, and my urologist are fantastic, I'm tired...  #spoonie #spoonielife #spoonieproblems #RAwarrior #rheumykidneys #rheumatoidarthritis #livingwithchronicpain #livingwithchronicillness #livingwithchronicfatigue #livingwithrheum #gardenwalk #rosechat #springgarden #myperfectlyimperfectview #thisperfectlyimperfectlife (taken before we left this AM)

SO much rain from these coastal storms, complete with thunderstorms mixed in, and the gardens have gone from loving it to drowning 😐 And I can't wait to check the basement again 🙄 We'll have gone from drought to the exact extreme opposite if this keeps up. But, there's only a chance of showers between later today and Monday (as of now 🙄) so hopefully we all get a chance to dry out this weekend!  #friday #morning #gardenwalk #morningritual #morningmotivation #rosechat #roses #inmygardentoday #apartmentgarden #coastalgarden #raindrops #myperfectlyimperfectview #thisperfectlyimperfectlife 

❤️❤️❤️ Because I know how much it can take to get through this weekend, especially when you have to celebrate it for your own mother and other family. #mothersdayweekend #mothersday #stillamom #myperfectlyimperfectview #thisperfectlyimperfectlife 

Post-op day 4 (kidney surgery # 3): There has been much of this today. Kitty snuggles & reading on the couch. In between naps and tea when I'm not queasy from pain. Because I feel like I've been hit by a train then run over by a truck. But I showered, so as far as I'm concerned? I win. Love to my fellow spoonies! ❤️❤️❤️ #takewhaticanget #smallvictories #spoonie #spoonielife #spoonieproblems #theultimatespoonie #livingwithrheumatoid #livingwithrheum #rawarrior #livingwithchronicillness #livingwithchronicpain #livingwithchronicinjury #rheumykidneys #myperfectlyimperfectview #thisperfectlyimperfectlife 

Monday evening, the priest said something during his sermon at the wake of our friend's aunt that resonated with me, and now seems like the time to share it:  When we pass, we will leave behind all of the things we collect throughout our lives, but love comes with us. So throughout the journey, don't forget to focus on love, love all you can. If you do that, it will carry you through everything.  I wouldn't have been happy either way this morning, I didn't feel either was representative of myself or appropriate for office. Being the wife of a Marine Veteran, for me it was Benghazi not emails. And I am a member of a diversified family and have a diversified community of friends. And I am disabled. So neither deserved my vote nor did they get it. I researched our sample ballot before hand and voted for whom I felt deserved my vote. Because I could not in my heart give my vote to either of them, and I have been deeply upset about this election for months now. But, I am stu...

Good morning & happy Monday! 💛🌻💛 Find joy in your day no matter what! (Even if you woke up with tonsillitis like I did 😐🙊)

Happy Saturday! It has been a rough, rough couple of weeks, with being sick and with trying to work the kinks out in mother's new home care routine, all on top of a major RA pain flareup. But, this morning I picked what I'm thinking are the last two cukes (since despite some flowers the vines are turning pale) and they're sliced up & in the jar pictured above now. Me I'm back on the couch under a throw blanket, sipping soup & nibbling saltines as my sinus infection has roared back up before it was even gone 😝😷🤒 Hope y'all are well! Find joy in your day no matter what! 💚

Having a day. Being a spoonie + being caregiver kind of having a day.  Exhausted. Overwhelmed. Ugly crying. Clueless. Anger returning. Trying to keep my head above water, but after all of these months, starting to slip under.  Thankful it's not as hot here today so I could spend some time in the garden. It is my great comfort.  

Good morning & happy Friday! Find joy in your day no matter what ☺️🙏🏻🙌🏻  #goodmorning #happyfriday #upheavalintorevival #findjoy #simplepleasuresgreatestjoy #autumnjoysedum #sedum #gardenwalk #augustgarden #summergarden #latesummergarden #mygarden #inmygardentoday #apartmentgarden #containergarden #summer #summertime #august #nofilter #thisperfectlyimperfectlife

Belated good morning & happy Tuesday! Snapped this right before heading over to mom's side of the #perfectlyimperfecthomestead to get her ready for her first day of adult care. So far it's reminding me of when I was a little girl and I hated going to summer camp: lots of crying and protesting 🙁 But it's what I expected and I'm not surprised, as sad as it is. Fingers crossed it won't be like this every time she's scheduled to go, but I won't get my hopes up. Regardless it will be a relief for me to have her there, she absolutely needs the programs they have in order to stay healthy & functioning until and while the long term home care process begins in a couple of weeks. Plus this and the home aid gives me peace of mind and some much needed break, because this ole spoonie is running on E! Find joy in your day no matter what! #upheavalintorevival #goodmorning #happytuesday #sunrise #august #summer #summertime #augustgarden #summergarden #mygarden #inm...

Belated happy Sunday ☺️  These pretties came home with me from the supermarket this morning 😊 It's been raining, raining, raining (and raining some more) since yesterday afternoon and I thought we just might be done but another flash flood warning came through on my phone and it's already clouding back over so there goes that idea! ☔️🌧💦 The air is so thick and soupy, really awful, even hard to breathe in! 😝 It's also flaring my RA something awful! 😝 I'm in the middle of laundry and straitening up the place (before I crash 😴) after breakfast with Big (Hubbs) & errands for mom (and other such related stresses). Find joy in your day no matter the weather 😘  #happySunday #Sunday #Sundayblessings #zinnias #zinnia #frontporchview #summer #summergarden #summertime #july #julygarden #mygarden #inmygardentoday #apartmentgarden #containergarden #gardenwalk #rainyday #andnowrelax #spoonie #spoonielife #spoonieproblems #livingwithrheum #simplepleasuresgreatestjoy #thispe...

Today I'm sharing with you Last Ride to Graceland by Kim Wright , one of the SheReads.org   Books of Summer , and my fourth 5 star read of the year. Genre : Fiction (Southern lit) Synopsis from the publisher, Gallery Books, first trade paperback edition May 2016 : "In Kim Wright's delightful novel, blues musician Cory Ainsworth is barely scraping by after her mother's death when she discovers a priceless piece of rock 'n' roll memorabilia hidden away in a shed out back of the family's South Carolina home: Elvis Presley's Stutz Blackhawk, its interior a time capsule of the singer's last day on earth. A backup singer for the King, Cory's mother, Honey, was at Graceland the day Elvis died. She returned home pregnant to South Carolina and married her high school sweetheart. Yearning to uncover the secret's of her mother's past - and possibly her own identity - Cory decides to drive the car back to Memphis and turn it over to Elvi...

Front porch. As the sun set last night, I found myself among my plants again, where I usually turn when I'm at a loss, or need comfort, and I couldn't help but wonder if there will ever be a day or week without a horrifying tragedy now in our world? Last week Dallas (US) while we were away for a couple of days, last night, Nice (France). It's bad enough when our personal worlds are in a state of upheaval. Deeply sad, and afraid for the world. Again. Still. I've always believed love trumps hate. I'm not sure what's happening anymore in the world at large 💔 #upheavalintorevival #morelovelesshate

'Love & Peace' Hybrid Tea roses from my garden. In trying to wrap my head around what's happened to us, our Country, our Nation again, I can only say this:  What we seem to forget so easily these days is that an attack on one is an attack on us all, on all of our ways of life. Stand together against hate regardless of outward differences, instead of banding together separately. It is because we show no overall unity that those who seek to destroy our ways of life keep succeeding. My prayers are with the victims, their families, our Nation, and the World. My heart hurts for us all.  *Because I've seen what happens after something horrifying like this happens, and what I'm seeing already elsewhere, I ask that you hold all comments on this post - please feel free to post your own feelings on your own pages. Given our personal family crisis at this time, and my health, on top of what's happened in Orlando, I am not up for more negativity and hate....

'Love & Peace' hybrid tea. I mean, Come. On.  In my garden today y'all! That's a 'no filter needed' rose my friends! I am so glad, relieved, happy, that I have found comfort and joy in gardening again.  What's on your Friday Favorites list today?

Old books = old friends. This book.  Divine Secrets Of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells. An all time favorite. So many quotes.  Right now, so much upheaval since Mom's recent stroke. A quote like this is exactly what I needed last night.  Because it's what I've been doing over & over again. Praying. Asking for help. For Mom.  And for me.  I'm losing her. I don't know how I'll ever survive the heartbreak of all this.

On our mantle. Fine lines:  Catching up with what I couldn't do yesterday, what I need to do today, and mom's birthday today amid her most recent stroke recovery.  A balancing act without balance. Precarious.