Long time between posts....

Well its been a while I know.
Is there anyone out there anymore??

What do you say. I just stopped. Everything it felt like.
I haven't scrapped in a very long time.
I haven't taken a proper photo in longer.
Sewing, not even thought about it
The garden, well it needs some attention but we did have a crop while I was gone.

After Emilys accident i threw myself into life as a way of coping. But as we drew closer to the year of that accident and it got colder last year things started to fall apart for me. I just didn't want to do anything. Depression was a title thrown around. And I guess i was. PTSD is still an issue. Even two years later I still have flashbacks? I stopped talking to people and as a results friendships suffered, but no matter what I did, I couldn't stop it all from happening. I lost hope.

With my husband to talk to, I have slowly been putting myself back together. I'm not who I was, but I feel better. I have done nothing special, just taken some time for me. Time to quietly, in my own way deal with what happened to us. Some days I barely made it out of bed, others I got in the car and actually went somewhere. Mostly I was locked within myself trying to come to terms with myself. Getting over the feeling of motherhood failure. It still haunts me that if one small thing changed that day none of it would of happened. If I changed one thing that day. But you can't do that.

Life continues on. And so I jump back on the bandwagon of life and move forward. The past few weeks I started to crochet again. Much of it in thanks to Mel goodsells blog. I love to crochet this time of year. Keeps you warm in front of the tv and it forfills my crafty need when its too cold to be away from the fire in the scrap room.

While Emily was back in hospital in may, I turned to knitting again. And it made me smile. Finding those small snippets of my personality coming out again.

Just this past week, I have had to ideas for canvas's, one for my amazing new niece and I can't wait to start. I forget the last time I had inspiration to do anything arty. I even want to sew!

Tonight dan is going to start the fire in my art room so I can do just that and I can't wait. It feels good.


Heres my beautiful niece with my baby brother, I can't believe he is a father. Brooklyn. I'm so excited about her. I can't wait to get home and meet her, but it will stll be a few months.
Emily
hehe, she is such a ham. The things you find on your phone when you leave it where she can touch it! And just how did they learn to use an i phone before me, said owner of the at times frustrating thing. Now I can use it and have found all the little ons and offs I love it.

Can you believe she will be four in just 10 days? I can't.
The new improved arm~! I don't think I ever shared a pick of the graft she had. It covered that whole space. At the beginning of May she was admitted for the first lot of reconstructive surgery. I lovely five day stay, or so they told us. I really should of known better.

The first day, a nine hour stretch in surgery. Where they took that large expanse of skin you see from her back and relocated that, muscle, fat other tissues to her forearm and then under a microscope reattached it and the blood supply. The first night she had half hourly obs on her arm, needless to say dan and I slept very little for the first few days after.

Then Day five comes and everyone is so happy, the blood supply has been good and what we could see of the transfer looked good. until they pulled all the dressing down. Then all hell took place.

The part of the flap over her wrist was to tight, they think, it cut blood flow and the layers of skin died. They released the pressure and hoped for the best. And we sat in her humid hospital room (humidity was needed for her arm to heal) for another week and a half. It was horrible. The heat got to us all. She wasn't allowed out of bed. It is so hard to keep a three year old entertained when they want to get out of bed!


Anyway, back to theatre, another skin graft and another three week stay in hospital to add to her record. ANother month spent with Ronald Mac house. And may was over. It took so long for the graft to actually heal they thought it was going to reject at one point. BUt her poor arm was so stressed its not surprising really. So for the following eight weeks we went to melbourne twice a week mostly so they could keep an eye on it. And then over the space of five days, it just up and healed and all the worry was gone. Amazing really. Her doctor things he will be able to get rid of the graft in time without to much effort and it won't limit anything theyw ant to do next. THankgod!

so now we are on a six month recovery wait until the next part. Tendon transfers. Beginning of next year at this point. I however expect it to be anything but easy when it occurs!

Thankgod for family. My dad came and took care of lilly for a month while all this went on. She was only in Melbourne for the final weekend. My poor dad thought he would get to spend some time with us. but it wasn't to be again! And now we are all kinds of homesick and can't really find any time to get home before next year.



Lillys teacher left at the end of last term. And I had to task of making her goodbye cake. Cupcakes..:) I hadn't done anything like this in so long. And it was so much fun. I forgot how much I enjoyed making cakes and icing them. A small amount of knowledge goes a long way.


And finally my two being silly in the thai restaurant in ballarat for a girl dan works with birthday. oh the noise, lucky it was a sunday and not to busy!

My heart is with my dear friend Kirsty Piper this week as she deals with the loss of her mum. Where thinking of you and we love you and we wish we were with you. We are there even if we can't physically be with you.

have a good week everyone

jacqui