State of Life Address, One Year Later

Life is a bed of roses!

So I have spent my entire day thinking profound thoughts, how about you? 

A year ago I was coming back to the life I knew a couple of years earlier.  Can you go back?  The age old question.  I wondered myself.  The answer, yes, but it won't be exactly the same and if you are lucky it might just be a bed of roses.  After moving for the fifth time I am glad we moved somewhere we had a history.  I was getting tired of starting all over.  I did not go back the the same old life but there are certainly advantages to having old friends.  I have even made new friends!

So as lovely as these roses are and as sweet as they smell they also have thorns.  An analogy for life?  You betcha!  Life is good and looks all pretty and perfect from a distance but if you get close there are thorns.   You can all attest that maybe my biggest thorn living here is.....the weather.  Big surprise!  No, I can't complain now, April is spectacular!  I have the luxury of leaving for most of the horrible time anyway so it is not such a big thorn.  I would rather focus on the flowers for now.

Family is a huge full flower here.  We get to see two of our kids on a regular basis.  We get to live near my sister and her family!  We are close enough to drive to Baton Rouge and see our parents and even more of our siblings and their families.  That is a huge fragrant flower in our life here.  We were somewhat isolated in Toronto, at least from our immediate family.  We did have some awesome cousins and friends who adopted us as surrogate families and we will always be thankful for them.  Good news is that we see them every summer.  But there is no substitute for your immediate family.

Church here is an inspiration to me.  I missed this church when we lived in Canada and am so happy to be back.  I have this church to thank for getting me involved in the Learn English Ministry.  What would I do without my Monday and Wednesday morning classes?  I had no idea how much I would enjoy teaching and how special these people have become to me.  They are fertilizer in my bed of roses.  They make me grow.

One main reason for us moving down here was TJ's mother.  I have avoided mentioning her in my blog because....well....I was not sure if it was the right place.  But here I go, jumping in with both feet.  His mom has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.  Last year she was in an assisted living facility.  She was not a happy camper there and her husband was not a happy camper with her living there either.  While she has Alzheimer's she still knows us and knew where she was and basically hated living there.  TJ is a good guy, one of the best.  He just felt it was better for her that we live closer to her and it would be much easier for him to help care for her from here.  He is a smart guy sometimes....well, most of the time.  She is now living at home, with in home care, and both she and her husband are much happier. This makes everyone in the family much happier too!  We are able to visit them every 4-6 weeks.  We would not have been able to do this from Toronto.  I love her attitude, she sees the roses and not the thorns, even though she has Alzheimer's. She is looking through rose colored glasses and always has.  Her family is perfect in her eyes and we could all learn a lesson from her.

Just another day in the rose garden

 The State of Life is good.  I am sure that if I had written this on a dreary, cloudy, hot, humid day where I had nothing to do and nowhere to go that the State of Life would be a little less rosy.  That is just me.  But today was lovely, I was busier than busy, and loved every minute of it.  If you had asked me a year ago if this is what I anticipated, my answer would have been a bit hesitant.  Shows you what I know! 

Stop and smell the roses. 
Tired of rose analogies?
I can go all day....