My Whirlwind Year

Another School year has come to a close and what a whirlwind this year has been!

I can’t believe my family begins Summer Break as of TOMORROW, when I am just barely adjusting to the fact they started the school year at all. 

I somehow turned 42 a few days weeks ago, yet I specifically remember turning 41 just a couple months back.

Apparently I’ve started a Boutique.  In my HOUSE!  NO idea how I managed to do THAT!

And my goals of:

1) Losing the 8 lbs I regained

2) to post on my blog weekly

3) keep up with daily style challenges on Instagram

…yeah, those have all gone really well!

I always struggle with time.  That’s life with ADD & Dyscalculia, I rarely know what day I’m on!  But this year has been warped more so than most.

This year was blanketed in the heavy cloak of grief.  Two months after that 41st birthday, my mom died (July 18).  Time, for me, stood still, while the rest of the world seemed to fast forward around me.  I grieve not so much because I miss her, but because our lifelong dysfunctional relationship ended very badly and through her passing I was thrown into the tail spin of my PTSD, re-living and re-examining every moment of my emotionally abusive and trauma filled childhood.  And it is HELL.  My year has been an emotional HELL that I cannot escape.

And yet…

My year has been equally filled with an amazing gift; the unwavering love and support of Hubs and my girls, surrounding me.  As difficult emotionally as my personal year has been, as a family we have FLOURISHED!  And as a person who grew up without a stable family, this is an AMAZING thing to me!

I’m trying to learn a new balance in my life.  A balance of focus, I suppose.  I’m learning to balance this state of grief with living.  A year of hard grieving (which only feels like a few months and is still raw), is a very heavy load to bear.  I thought I would be through it by now but I’ve learned I can’t rid myself of the cloak and I’ve come to accept this.  It just IS.  There is a lifetime of emotional crap I need to sort through in the wake of her passing. It sucks all my energy and much of my focus.  I’ve learned I cannot control it.  I cannot hold it in and wait for a more convenient time to let it out.  Believe me, I’ve tried!  But I have learned to take advantage of those times between the emotional storms.  I do as much as I can on those lighter days.  I throw myself into launching my new boutique, the kids’ lives and schedules, everyday life and errands.  And I cling to my family through those emotional storms.  I feed my soul through showering them with all the love, affection, words of affirmation, acceptance and understanding that I never received in my own childhood.   I’ve ALWAYS done this, I’m just like that, but now I do so with a greater awareness.  I realize now that I’m not just loving them, I’m telling them and showing them how valued and cherished they are as humans because I want to be certain they never doubt their personal value.

And now I’m going to gush on about my kids for a bit =o).

Rosemary has completed 6th grade, which is the first year of Middle School in our area.  We started the year with great concerns over Middle School drama.  We’d heard all the horror stories about drama filled life up at our Middle School, and my Rose is quite capable of stirring the pot herself when she chooses to.  I was sure we were going to be dealing with something!   Well, not only did she complete the year pretty much drama free, she also helped a few friends through some very dark stuff!  I am soooo proud of how she has emotionally grown and matured this year!  I didn’t expect it at this age.  I’m even more surprised that this kid who was a decent student through elementary school, turned out to be an AMAZING student in Middle School!  She totally managed herself and her work the entire year and earned straight “A”s, all year!!!  We didn’t have to hound her at all!  And she was very dedicated to soccer.  She worked hard to improve her skill and succeeded!  All in all this was a year where her hard work brought to fruition a high degree of personal success.  What an INCREDIBLE lesson for an almost 13 year old girl to learn!  She succeeded because she WORKED HARD!

Lavender has also had a year filled with growth from hard work.  She began the school year (2nd grade) with huge struggles in reading.  Despite coming from a household filled with books and regular reading, she was only reading at a Kindergarten level.  I felt helpless.  It was a struggle at first but she worked hard to learn this skill and has reached her end-of-year grade level in reading!!!  She was also voted Happiest Student by her class, and it couldn’t be more fitting!  Throughout the year different teachers would comment to me that she is always SO HAPPY and seems to live in her own little bubble of delight!  I’m sure that’s also code for “this kid doesn’t focus or pay attention well,” but it has a far more positive slant!   To my ears, it’s the best report I could have about my kid when she is misbehaving!

In my own life, as I mentioned above, I have officially launched Ginger & Zimt Boutique!!!  I am trying to turn this blogging hobby and my love of clothes and style into a career.  It has been a ton of work restructuring our house to fit in the boutique but the finished result is fantastic!  It will be some time before I have a section of this blog set up to share with all of you.  But for now, if you are on Facebook, you can join my online shopping group!  I will have weekly pop-ups where my full inventory is posted and people can shop.  I will also do live-feed video shopping!  

In school news, I didn’t get to volunteer at school as much as I have in years past (I needed more personal time) but I was still active as PFO Vice President, Super Leopard (Jog-A-Thon mascot) and the ensuing yearlong fandom fed my soul, and this year’s Jungle Carnival was a huge success despite several obstacles trying to make it otherwise.  My PFO team is AWESOME, both as teammates and as friends!  I am forever grateful to have these amazing women in my life and to get to work with them in all the years to come!  

This year’s school holidays gave us some incredible family memories!  Winter brought a series of historic snow storms that put our family in a state of Winter Wonderland BLISS, and gave us an extended Winter Break, snuggled up at home and out playing in the snow.  Spring break we spent cabin camping on the coast, and exploring the beaches!

Cheers to the end of our whirlwind school year!  We have a crazy busy summer ahead of us filled with camping and visiting family!  Lots to look forward to.  One thing I’m not looking forward to,  a return to San Francisco to scatter my mom’s ashes in The Bay.  Wish my sanity luck!

Happy Summer, my friends!