Leg Three

Santa came to my house early! I got another leg today! Well, not a whole leg. In the past 9 months my lucky fin has shrunk so much that I had to have a third socket made. I keep the old foot and the old hardware. My old foot is looking pretty beat up. I wear my good tennis shoe 95% of the time, even in the house because my gait is adjusted to that pair of shoes. But it still gets gunky. I just take some windex to it and shine it up.
Today I thought it was time to get a new pair of shoes to go with my new foot. It really does make a difference. I wear this socket for a week and then tune it up in any sore spots. So far so good. Just a few spots hurt. My leg has lost all it's shape and is very cylindrical. It is weird to look at. Sometime I will take a picture and post it. It is super weird and kinda gross looking to be honest.

New Addition

We have had the most loyal and loving dog for the past 12 years. His name is Pete. Over the last few months he has blown out his knee and hip and after some tests, we believe he has cancer. We have been keeping him comfortable until we could let him go. I think he is ready and I have been preparing myself to let him go. The problem is that I don't know if I should keep him around through the holidays or not. Well, we started to look for a new puppy over the last couple of weeks and found a great dog at the shelter. She was about 4 months old and we all fell in love with her. Sadly, 4 days later she got that awful puppy virus and was terribly ill. The virus had been going aroundthe shelter and we took a chance on her anyway. We had to put her down. Not easy for me, even though we had only known her a few days. Hard on the kids too but we decided that she would have died in the shelter and at least she had a family to love her even if it was only for a short time.
This last weekend we found some puppies at a different shelter and after meeting with all 8 of the puppies in the liter, we picked one out and brought her home. We did a major bleach down of the outside yard and insde. We threw out any toy or other item that the last puppy may have touched and we cleaned our carpets. So far, we are good. We named her Gretchen.

Gretchen. She is a Black Lab blend

Our amazing dog Pete. He is a shepherd mix

Family Photo Shoot

My daughter is taking a photography class in high school this year. I thought it would be great if I let her take our family pictures for our Christmas cards. Well, we tried to take some in the backyard. No success. So we headed to the beach and decided to just let her snap away and use whatever fun pictures we got from it. Here are some of the pictures.
Oh.. and we don't match at all because I usually turn the photos into black and white so everyone was suppose to just wear a solid color.



Can you tell which of my boys couldn't find a solid color tshirt in his laundry pile?

 

my teenage boys

loving the seagulls

I worked really hard to get my hair that straight. Still a messy fluffball

Love it!!

Beach and Birds

My youngest son loves to watch birds. He is especially in his element at the beach when he can watch all the seagulls.
My sister in law has been in town visiting and it was a great exuse to go to the beach. I grabbed some old tortillas to bring to feed the birds. (We do live close to the border so I figure our seagulls are bi-cultural.), The older kids found sea treasures. They each caught a handful of san dollars that were swimming in the tide close to shore. That was a first. We have never caught those before. Maybe it has to do with the time of the year. Anyway, I got some fun pictures of the mass of birds we attracted with our tortillas

pajaro mucho gusto tortillas.

Big brother feeding the ones far away

Just keep on, keeping on.

I have been in a real funk for the past few weeks. It has taken me awhile to shake it and I still don't feel like I am through it yet.
This time of year is bringing up all kinds of feelings about what I was doing at this time last year. And I have been feeling pretty discouraged. I feel like I was given this amazing gift. I was given a second chance at life and I don't feel like I have been worthy of it. I am struggling to feel like I am doing enough with this second chance. 
I struggle with the curious question I am repeatedly asked,  "Are you going to get one of those high tech prostetic legs so you can run marathons?"  This is just one example of the new standard I feel I have to live up to. If I am not running a marathon with my new leg than I am wasting this chance I have been given to start a new life. (I don't like blurting out the other fact that those running prosthetic legs run about $30,000 and are not covered by insurance) I see other women with perfectly tidy houses, beautifuly manicured nails and hair and also having time to train for the next big race. I still struggle to keep the laundry done, my hair is one big giant curly poof ball, and am lucky to walk through the grocery store without someone saying, "Did you hurt your foot? I notice you are limping." I would be happy to just walk evenly and normally.
I know in my mind that it is not ever good to compare yourself to others but in my heart I can't help myself from doing just that. I feel like I am in a battle with myself to find where I fit in to my new world and to find my new normal. Discouragement stinks.

Hockey and Polo

So this is the last week of the sport season for my kids. This is the third year for my daughter playing field hockey. It is fun to watch but I still haven't learned all the rules to this sport and I have put forth a good effort too. I have loved going to the games. I missed them all last year except for her last home game. I had my mom take me and with only my one leg and my walker I was able to manuver to the top of the bleachers and see her play. I will never forget watching her looking for me in the stands and then her face when she saw that I made it there. A sweet moment of motherhood.
So I got a couple of pictures of her this season. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of my son at water polo yet. He has forbidden me to take pictures. Maybe it will be ok if his dad takes the pictures. Less creepy I guess.

No pirates this year.

If I am going to dress up like a pirate then I want a Really good costume! I will have to prepare ahead of time for next year. So we went with the Ghost and Ghostbuster duo. The kids all came up with something we already had. We had a party at church and I was partly in charge of so I never stopped to get a picture with me. But here is the rest of the gang.