Quick catch up?

I'm pretty sure there are no readers left here, for it has been a long time since last posting, but hello to anyone that picks up this little blip on their radar. I've missed you.

I am alive and well in deepest southern Alberta, and have been quietly appreciating what was just about the most mild and lovely winter Canada could have offered me.  Yes, we had our moments, but we also had plenty of abnormally warm weeks above 10 degrees C which were just heaven.

On the other side of the country they seemed to get hammered with obscene amounts of snow, week in and week out.  My sympathies guys.

It's now a cool Easter weekend but pah, it's summer next week surely?  I mean, there is grass sprouting and everything.  And there are chocolate eggs in my very close vicinity.  Nom nom.

Life has been busy and challenging.  Teenagers.  Need I say more?

I've discovered rather belatedly that my mood is dictated by the moods of my children and it's exhausting and I need to figure a way out to stop this pattern.

Daughter Number One is a kind and beautiful soul, both inside and out.  She is tall, stunning and funny in that (ahem, sarcastically) witty British kind of way.  She cares for and worries about too much in the world.

She lives with anxiety.  It's been formerly diagnosed - and to me, it came from no-where. Of course, that cannot be true, it will have been manifesting itself for years, but the trigger was was the concussion when she started high school I think, and the realities of the world came crashing in, causing her brain to overload and stop her walking for weeks.  It's been a battle ever since.

We have luckily had access to some amazing people through the Children's Hospital.  But then of course, we got a diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes just over a year ago - as if the poor kid didn't have enough to worry about.  So that too has been another challenge and as the teenage hormones kick in, an occasional battle ground too.

From dancing in seven classes a week in all styles, she quit the whole lot. It was too anxiety-inducing in the end.  She had had three bouts of tonsillitis, back to back, in the Fall and had missed weeks of rehearsals.  Her sugar levels were all over the place and the dance teacher made some unguarded and not particularly helpful comment - and bang, she was done. 

I  was more upset than she was, I think. This can't have been last time I watched her grace a stage.  I wasn't ready.  I said nothing of course, just kept my proud-mamma-bear feelings hidden.

With a little nudging however, reconciliation with the dance teacher ensued and she agreed/decided to go back for two routines.  My daughter is a a kind of all-or-nothing girl - so I don't think just two routines satisfies her on any level - but it keeps her hand (foot) in and leaves her some options if she wants to sign up again for September.  Or quit for good.  But she will at least understand that it will be a well-considered decision, rather than a fly-by-the-seat-of-pants decision.

At this point in time, I feel I could write for hours - I have so much whirling around in my head.  But I'll leave it there.

It's a long weekend for us and I'm just hoping to make the most of a couple of lazy pyjama mornings. I may or may not get out a paintbrush and I may or may not throw the vacuum around - I'm living on the edge I tell ya.

And in the meantime, my Sunday nights are empty.

More to follow, and Smudge will also update you soon too.  He has some shameful admissions to make.