The Return

My days are quite different now. I had spent the last 5 months on contract with a publisher working on book promotions with some very talented publicists in an office setting. My contract was up June 30, so now I'm back home on contracts with various publishers and clients. Working from home is a blessing. I was thrilled to be full-time there for the last few months, but I sure did miss my double life as a mommy/promotions consultant. The kids have been great! I love being back home with them. Some days are challenging, but I'm able to get my work done and I'm getting used to balancing it all.

As an extra added bonus, I'm relearning how to do laundry and dishes and cook for my family again! The things you take for granted...

Chad and I had a date last night. Tori came over to put the kids in bed for us and hang out while we were gone. (It's so frustrating to have to pay a babysitter to literally just sit in your house while your children sleep. At least we love her!) We grabbed dinner and headed to The Basement on 8th Avenue to see FLOREZ. We got there at 9, but the guys didn't go on until after 11. We're almost too old for that! Regardless, we got to see a great show. Alex Florez is an incredibly gifted guitarist. He, Erik and Justin blew us away. They'll probably have another show there next month, so PLEASE plan to be there with us. We promise a great night!

Here's hoping my life becomes blogworthy again. Hang in there with me! Much love...

I'm hoping that this little life will become blogworthy again!

Finally -- an update (especially for Mary Alice)

So the slacker finally got around to posting an update. We've been busy! Once we survived tax season, we zipped off to Chattanooga to welcome our friends Za and Krishon. Za, Chad's best friend, and his wife Krishon moved to Chattanooga from Los Angeles. We're SO EXCITED that we don't have to hop a flight across the country to see them any more! Hooray!

We settled into our hotel, grabbed coffee with Za and Krissy, and crashed for the first night, but we were up bright and early for a huge breakfast at The City Diner Cafe Restaurant (no kidding, that's the whole name!) Stuart really loved eating anything within reach.

We had an awesome Saturday trotting around at Lookout Mountain, Ruby Falls, and an awesome water park downtown. Here's Michael Jackson, I mean Chad, dangling the children over a waterfall. (Just kidding. It's a decorative fountain.)

This is proof that I was actually there. Avery and I were staring directly into the blinding sun, but at least we captured the moment.

Avery and Stuart couldn't get enough of these huge wooden chairs. Unlike Cracker Barrel (or Barrel Cracker, as Avery calls it), these aren't for sale.

BEAUTIFUL view!!!

You can see 47 states from this viewfinder! (Okay, not really--but maybe 7, I think.)

Avery didn't care how cold the water was. She was in the middle of it.

Stuart, on the other hand, screamed like a girl.

Stuart loved the back of Za's car. There's so much fun to be had with a bag of softballs.

Stuart is pretty infatuated with Krissy.

Avery, too.

Aren't they handsome!

I've tried to forget the rest of the weekend because it was spent hovering over a toilet. The stomach bug got me. It only lasted a few hours, but it took 2 more days to recover. Let's erase that from memory. Delete!

A bunch of my college girlfriends came to town the following weekend to catch up before Lindsey and her family move to Portland. It's quite a task to wrangle all the children, much less photograph them, but we did it. Sort of.

These two are my favorite. .I'm a little biased, I know.

Papa stayed a night with us when he was in town for a funeral. We were just glad to have a little time with him and shower him with attention.

And in the latest news....We went to the beach. No, not all of us. Just Chad and me! It was the best ever! We were a tad bit crispy by the end of the weekend. It was the first time we'd been away from the kids for more than a day since before they were born. Hooray for vacations.

Dear readers (all 2 of you), if you're still hanging with me, I sincerely appreciate it. Till next time...

Mercy!

Please, please, please extend mercy to this woman! I'm so sorry to have gone so long between posts. I definitely haven't lacked things to post about. We have so much going on in our lives right now that I'd like to share. I've just been focused on work and Chad's been dominating the computer (we just survived tax season, so he gets forgiveness.)

Stuart has started taking steps. That's the biggest news in our house. He's also mastered several words. Fun kid. We are so lucky to have such laid-back, easy-going children.

Pictures and videos to come. Hang with me.

Stuart's Birthday (aka "The one with all the pictures"

On Stuart's actual birthday, we let him open a few presents. He was thrilled to add a few more bouncy balls to his collection.

He just looks so big!

He got his first taste of a cupcake, too.

At the actual party, the kids were content to scoot around on riding toys and play with balloons and balls.

I don't think he was even reaching for anyone in this picture. I'm pretty sure he was just celebrating.

Stuart loves his Uncle Shawn.

Can't tell by his expression, but Stuart was thrilled to get to eat pizza. We couldn't keep him from shoving more in his mouth before chewing and swallowing.

He got one good look at his cake and then...

He started digging in.

He had an audience, too.

He decided not to use a fork.

Stuart wasn't taking a break from eating just to get his picture taken.

These kids are up to no good!

Can you tell it used to be a cake?

We had to drag Stuart away from the cake. He would have eaten the whole thing if we'd let him. But he thought it was hilarious that Daddy was showing off his mess.

Had to throw the poor child in the bathroom sink to clean him up.

Stuart is 1!

My precious baby Stuart is a year old. I can hardly believe it. This last year has been a wild ride, but we've been so blessed by his addition to our little family. We've come a long way.

Stuart crawls around this house like he owns the place. He's FAST! (as was his labor!) He is such a laid-back, go-with-the-flow child. He takes life in stride and thinks just about anything is hilarious. I doubt he'll walk any time soon, but he's quite content to get around at his own leisure.

Stuart loves his big sister, even though she sometimes pesters him. One day (not too far from now) he'll be bigger than her and put her in her place.

We're a lucky family and can't wait to see what the next year brings for our sweet one.

Happy Birthday Big Boy!

Working Girl

We've had a few changes in our house in the last couple of weeks. Those changes have kept us quite busy, so please accept my apologies for the delay in posting.

I run a marketing and PR consulting firm with my friend Lola. We work on contract with companies to book media, write press material, and train authors how to blog and work with social media. I was approached by a former colleague a few weeks ago who asked if I'd be interested in putting my contracts on hold and work full-time with them through the end of June to get through a heavy spring publishing list.

It was good timing. I was craving a little break from my stay-at-home mom status and this position allows me to get the corporate life back for a few weeks. I worked out full-time childcare for the kids and committed to working with Hachette Book Group through the end of June. I've got traditional work hours and go to an office every day. I even had to go out and buy some new work clothes.

The change of pace has been refreshing for me. However, there's a bit of chaos in our house sometimes. Wednesdays are a nightmare. I drop off Avery and Chad drops off Stuart. We both work full days. Chad picks up Stuart and heads to church and I meet Avery at church. We eat dinner there (if there's a Wednesday night meal) and I have to dash upstairs to get my kindergarten class ready. It's 8:30 before we're home. We have to lay out clothes for the kids for the next day and get them into bed (hopefully before 9.)

I hope you don't think I'm complaining. This job is a huge blessing in the middle of a recession where people are being laid off left and right. I enjoy what I do and I honestly appreciate my kids and husband more when I get home.

So if you see us looking a little harried and hurried, please forgive. We'll either get used to this schedule soon or be done with it at the end of June. Thanks for checking on us!

Ten Years Later...

Ten years ago today, I was hit head-on by a drunk driver.

I'd just had a great weekend in Atlanta at Kimme's house and was not looking forward to being back to reality. I'd turned down an offer for a ride to Nashville Christian School because I was going to be late getting back into town. The Lipscomb University Acappella Singers, in which I was singing alto in college, was about to give a Sunday evening concert at NCS and I was a little grouchy about cutting my weekend a bit short to sing there.

I changed into my black dress, grabbed my music folder, keys, and driver's license and jumped in the car -- my mom's hand-me-down Volvo. (Side note: Over Christmas break, I'd contemplated bringing my old purple Camaro back to school instead of the Volvo. That probably changed the course of my history.) Since I didn't have any pockets in my dress, I'd been balancing my license on top of my folder, but it slid off on the way out the door.

I wasn't incredibly familiar with the route to NCS, but I knew where I was going. I was on Charlotte Pike in Nashville, where it's two lanes. It was straight, wide, and flat. The weather was perfect and it was still daylight. I was going slower than I cared to because of the traffic.

All of a sudden, the Jeep Wagoneer in front of me swerved and took the ditch and that's when I saw him. His Ford Econoline van clipped the back of her and hit me head on. I don't remember the impact.

The next thing I can recall is a rescue worker outside my shattered window reassuring me that I was okay, but that he'd have to cut my door off to get me out. I remember telling him (screaming at him) that I was fine and that he just needed to get me out. There was blood everywhere, but I had no idea where it was coming from and I couldn't move my arm.

Then I remember the lights inside the ambulance and the light above my bed in the trauma unit at Vanderbilt. Doctors were coming in and out and asking me the same stuff over and over, but I don't think I was giving them good information. Since my driver's license wasn't in the car, I was unidentified. (They named me "El Paso, El Paso" because I was the fifth unidentified person admitted that day and they were using cities in Texas to name them.) I'd give them parts of names and parts of phone numbers and they finally pieced together enough information to get in touch with my family.

Whomever called my mom should win an award. They called her at home. My brother answered and they started giving him information until he said something like "Whoa. You need to talk to my mom." Very calmly they told her that her daughter Laura had asked them to call her and tell her that she's okay, but that she'd been in an accident and wanted her to come." I had no idea they'd called anyone. She was 6 hours away, so she called Grandma and told her to hit the road since she was only 2 hours away.

My uncle (Russ, I think) took Grandma to Nashville to be with me and as soon as she saw me in the trauma unit, she passed out and had to be admitted. Evidently, I looked pretty bad.

I was still covered in blood. The driver side window had shattered and was in my face and arms. The airbags had burned my hands and left forearm. My right humerus was completely snapped in two places. (It had been set and put in a gravity cast.) My legs were deeply bruised from the engine impact and I was swollen all over. I had a reaction to the pain medicine they'd given and had thrown up all over my hair, so they wrapped it back in gauze. (What?!?) My clothes (every stitch of them) had been cut off and I was only covered by a sheet -- at least that's what I think, because I was freezing. However, even just that sheet was killing my right foot. That was the only body part I was worried about because it was hurting so bad. Yes, I had my arm dangling beside me in pieces, but I was concerned about the foot. (Another side note: The trauma team didn't even check my foot. A week later at my first ortho follow-up x-rays, I forced them to x-ray the foot and they determined that it was broken in at least 4 places!)

My family finally all arrived. Dad had been out of town on business, so he hopped on a plane as soon as mom called him and dashed to my bedside. I was only in the hospital 2 days. Mom and Dad took me to Steve and Susan's house (mom's college roommate) to rest and recover. They bathed me and scooped the rest of the glass out of my ears, nursed my wounds, and put me in bed.

That afternoon, my dad went to the lot where they hauled my wrecked car to retrieve my belongings and assess the damage. When he returned, he sat down in front of me, held my hands, and cried. I had no idea what he'd seen. (Mom and I can't find the pictures, but once we do, I'll be sure to post some.)

What they explained to me that day is that I shouldn't have walked away from that accident. If I'd been in any other car, I'd have been killed. Upon impact, the airbag deployed, the steering wheel popped off (probably what broke my arm), the engine dropped down and when the van went over the top of me, the windshield cracked without shattering and the roof buckled on the "B" pillar, creating a safety cage.

I don't know all the facts of the guy who hit me. I know his name, but I'll keep it to myself. He was 49 years old. I'm told he wasn't wearing his seat belt, but survived anyway. His face was shattered on the windshield and he was in the hospital for 3 months. Instead of a simple misdemeanor of DUI, he was charged with the felony of vehicular assault, which was violation of his parole -- for murder. Yep. He'd evidently killed someone more than a decade before over drugs.

He went to prison. My source told me he'd be eligible for parole in 2008. So at the end of 2007, I wrote the parole board and received an unfortunate response. They told me he'd been released a few months before. I'd been told wrong about his parole. They assured me that I would be added to the list of people they contacted if he were to be arrested again. I sincerely hope he does not get arrested because that would mean that he'd done the same thing to someone else.

I'm pretty passionate about alcohol awareness. And I'm definitely a serious seatbelt advocate. I think Volvos are great, but I don't drive one now. I give credit for my survival to God. For He alone can give life or take it away.

It's hard to believe that I didn't even know my husband ten years ago. I can barely imagine that he is such a huge part of my life yet he has no idea what that season of my life was like. I stayed in school that semester, only having to drop one class. I learned to write with my left hand (not very well, but it did the job) because my right arm was immobile for two months. I pledged a social club (for all you non-Lipscombites, that's like a sorority in Christian schools). I wore overalls a lot so I didn't have to constantly ask my fellow dorm dwellers to fasten my pants for me. I learned how to tie my hair back with one hand. I moved on. But at the end of that semester, I had to be at his hearing. I had to look at him. I had two of my best friends beside me in the court room that day and I was strong.

I remember my accident every day. I still have scars on my hands. I feel the weather change in my shoulder, knees, and right foot. It doesn't go away. But I don't want it to. That terrible event is part of who I am today.

I know I shared a bunch of information with this post and I don't expect my writing to win any style points, but I thank you for reading it and for letting me get it out. Today was a big day.