The Resilient Widow

Hello, and greetings from Huntingtown, Maryland! Our new home for the next 2.5 years or so. We have lived here for 17 days. And things are already in full swing! The house is pretty much put together, aside from a few boxes and such. The girls started school immediately, and have already made some wonderful friends! We have had multiple play dates, met some sweet new friends, and Evelynn has joined Girl Scouts! The girls have taken to their new home with such ease and grace; I could learn a thing or two from them. For me, the move has been an exciting and scary change. As I have stated before, I have lived in California for my entire life. This move was not expected and came quickly. Well, the news of the move came quickly, but I had a long 9 months to worry, think and ignore the fact that we were moving. The first week was full of so much excitement! My sister flew out with us, so we had fun checking out all of the sites with Auntie Bre! Finding our new grocery store, getting acquai

Hello everyone! It has been almost two months since my last blog post, and a lot has happened! As I have mentioned before, we are moving to Maryland in February, Kris actually leaves in January. When we first found out about the move, it was hard. But it seemed unreal. It was in the future and not worth stressing over. Well, here we are, mid December, and it has become all too real. Painfully real. I must admit, I have not handled it as well as I thought that I would. But, I will go into that later. I will start by saying that we were very fortunate to receive a full-price offer on our home! What a blessing. However, our home sold in less than a week. I was not prepared for everything to move along so quickly. So instead of selling our home after the holidays like I had hoped, and moving into my parents for a week or two, we were out by November 20th. We moved into a townhouse. With none of our furniture. Just rentals and borrowed furniture from amazing family and friends. Our home b

October has come again. Like it does every year, without fail. I used to look forward to this time of year. Fall. Family outings to the pumpkin patch. Halloween. Now, I dread it. October 5th will mark nine years since Daniel, my late Husband, lost his life while serving our country in Afghanistan. And now, my body physically starts to ache around this time. I lose sleep. I get short-tempered. My body reacts to the trauma that occured almost nine years ago. I have written multiple blogs about this day. About how my Dad had to come to work and tell me that Dan had died, since I wasn't home to receive the dreaded knock on the door. About how I had to tell Dan's best friend and Father that he was gone. About how I literally went into a dream like fog while planning his funeral; staring at pictures of caskets and headstones. It is still a time that seems so vivid and painful, but also like I was watching someone else experience it.  It's hard to put into words. And like I have

Anxiety; my constant companion, my unwanted partner in life. Anxiety can be a real bitch. I remember lying in bed when I was a young girl, worrying that my parents who were out for the evening, were surely injured or dead from a car crash. I had horrible homesickness throughout grade school. I just wanted to be in my safe place. Luckily, my anxiety subsided the older I got. And by the time I was in my teens, it was gone. I was a care-free and happy girl. Fast forward to 2011. Anxiety THROUGH THE ROOF. But how could I not have anxiety? Cancer in 2009. Losing my Husband in 2010. Cancer again in 2011. The bad news just kept on coming. The other shoe fell. And fell again. My brain became conditioned to fear and expect the worst. And it did. And boy oh boy did it affect all areas of my life. Becoming pregnant with my oldest was a true miracle. I was told I couldn't conceive naturally. So when I became pregnant, I was elated! Obviously. But I was also terrified. 24/7. I just "knew

Well, hello there strangers! It has been almost THREE years since my last post. What? I have no excuse, except for being a busy Mama and Fiancé. But from this point on, I will commit to post much more often. I am hoping to start some speaking gigs, so if you know anywhere or anyone that needs a motivational pep talk or testimony, I am your gal! Ok, so I am going to give you a super quick update on what has been going on in my world for the past three years. My two little girls are now 5 and 3 years old, and as of Christmas Eve last year, I have a FIANCE (Kris)! Yay! I am two years in to my Master's Degree in Psychology. I will finish in less than a year, and will begin my licensure hours towards becoming a Marriage and Family Therapist. Kris was deployed to Afghanistan in the spring, and then returned home from his deployment early. Honestly, I am not sure that my anxiety would have held out for another three months anyways, so that was a tremendous blessing. I am STILL cancer fr

October 5th is the day that I dread each and every year. October 5th is the day that I re-live the very worst day of my life. Today marks six years since Dan was killed in action while serving our country. And as this day approaches, the feelings and emotions re-surface as it was happening all over again. The pain, the sadness, the shock; it all comes flooding back. So to sum it up… today SUCKS. It is such a weird feeling. Because my life is pretty amazing. I have the love of a wonderful and supportive man named Kristopher. I have two beautiful little girls that I get to stay home with and watch grow and blossom. And I have a home that Kris and I created together, that is full of love and laughter. But when October 5th shows its ugly face, I revert back to the newlywed who learned that her Husband of four months was killed. And it is so incredibly confusing and difficult to exist as both people for those 24 hours. Because for the other 364 days of the year, I remember Dan in such a