The past few months

 Welcome back! It's summer #3 in the "exciting life of Connie Chandler"! It was an... eventful fall/winter/spring in the midwest (and south). Quick recap: 

 OCTOBER: I got to attend Hutchmoot in Nashville with my friends, Julie and Kelsey. Also celebrated lots of birthdays... beyond that, all I remember is the days getting shorter and colder. 

NOVEMBER: Before heading to Memphis for the holidays, I finished the first draft of my novel, which has been in process for three years! Dad and nephews came to get me and take me to Memphis, and Aunt Ruth and Uncle Colin came down to have American Thanksgiving with us.

DECEMBER: Celebrated some very special people's birthdays, got to see my big brother absolutely steal the show as Jacob Marley and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in A Christmas Carol, caught up on reading 12 books, and had (as I recall) a 35-course international feast, prepared by my sister-in-law and nephew. Oh, and of course, Christmas!  

JANUARY: My friends, Abby and Jake, drove down to Memphis to take me home, and we did a one-day Memphis tour together before we left. Then I wiled away the long, cold, dark nights of Indiana by watching all 8 Harry Potter movies with bags of chocolate and mugs of hot tea.

FEBRUARY: Rallied some gumption to fight Seasonal Affect Disorder by hosting some parties - a cookie swap, a Pride and Prejudice movie-game-and-tea, and a Wizard of Oz movie-and-game day. Also attended Tim Tebow's "Night to Shine" event with my friend, Pam. 

MARCH: Mom and Dad (and Cooper) came to visit me and we did some spring cleaning/organizing. I completed draft #2 of my novel, and I started a new crafty-craft: a huge canvas diamond art picture... still working on it, so stay tuned for the finished product. Easter weekend was incredible and beautiful, filled with love and friendship and hope. 

APRIL: I turned forty-one-derful! Continued to work on my story and diamond art, acquired a pile of books I'm excited to read this summer, and successfully participated in a ladies' progressive dinner, which I will write a whole post about later. 

MAY: Just a couple weekends ago, I went on a little vacation with my friends, Lisa and Kathryn, to Toronto - or as we like to call it, "Fake England." We drove up, and it only takes 6 hours to get there by way of the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, passing through such cities/towns as London, Cambridge, York, and Scarborough. And while Canada doesn't have "ADA requirements," we found that many of the people went out of their way and got creative in order to make their space accessible to me. 

I did not get sick, which is a blessing, and I maintained my sanity (I think!). And now things will get more interesting. Get ready, I've got some fun plans and a lot to say this summer! 

Comments

  1. Kelly WMay 17, 2024 at 5:43 PM

    Yay! So glad you're back to the blog, and so excited about your book!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Disabled is not synonymous with Unemployable

I recently learned that I was losing my Medicare insurance coverage, and when I asked why, I was told that it is because of a change in my disability. This is very confusing, because I have had the same disability my entire life, and will continue to have the same disability until the end of my life; that's the weird and inconvenient thing about being diagnosed with a rare and incurable gene-based motor-neurological disease. So when I tried to correct that false assumption of a "change in my disability," I was told that my diagnosis didn't matter in this case.  ?? I'm sorry, what?? After feeling like I was in a Lewis Carroll story for a while, or like I was playing "Who's on First" with Abbott and Costello, I finally decoded that when the person was using the words "you are not disabled," what they actually meant was "you are employed." So in that context, they were correct: losing my medical insurance had nothing to do with my
Read more

Guest post: Fear to Friendship

Image
I've asked a few of my caregiving friends to write guest posts to share about their experiences of taking care of me. This week's post is from my dear friend, Mandy Wood: Connie and I have been friends for years. We went to the same church, were in the same small group for a while, and had movie/game nights with our shared friends. When my family and I moved to Maine, she and some friends came out and stayed with us for a week. Upon the two of us moving back to Indiana, where our friendship had started years prior, she had reached out asking if I would consider being a part of her friend-care team. Up to this point, we were great friends but when that question vibrated through my ears, I have to say I was heavy with intimidation and did not want to be a part of it. What would this mean? This was a whole new level of friendship I hadn’t anticipated. I put it off for a little while and eventually forgot about it. It wasn’t until a month later when my grown daughter had mentioned
Read more

"At least I still have..."

Image
 Over the past year I have become good friends with a woman here in Fort Wayne who has multiple sclerosis, and has struggled with some pretty aggressive digressions in her strength and health lately. She is a remarkable human being, and I love so much about her, from her sassy curly haircut, to her Brooklyn, NY accent, to her candid way of being authentic about her thoughts, to her faith in the Lord that keeps getting a daily workout.  We talk a lot about disability and faith, and how to hang on to hope in the dark moments of loss and depression. We've also talked about our "thresholds," as in, the limits we imagine our hope might have. "At least I can still sit up," she might say. "I don't know what I'll do when I have to lay down all the time." Last year around this time, she said something like, "At least I can still use my hands..." only, the thing is, she lost the strength in her hands this year and can no longer feed herself and
Read more