The Bittersweet Season Begins Again

I just opened my admin panel to make a quick post and found this notification from WordPress waiting for me:

Happy Anniversary! You registered on WordPress.com 2 years ago! Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging!

I can hardly believe all of the unexpected and heartbreaking events that have taken place in the past two years, but through it all, I have My Sweetheart and I feel like our love grows more and more every day. Two years ago I wouldn’t have expected to be saying that now. Maybe that’s just proof that everything really does happen for a reason. {sad smile}

Anyway… I am here to make a quick post about the upcoming holiday season, which is always so difficult for me. If you’ve read this blog from the beginning, you know that I lost my grandparents a year apart at this time of year over a decade ago and have seen very little of my natural family since then. My Sweetheart is known to say that when we grow up, our family becomes more about the people we choose to have in our lives. I agree with that philosophy more and more, but in the past year (or two) the list of those we call family is shorter and shorter. Last year we lost two members of our closest family, our friend Pam and our Diggity Dog, exactly one month apart, and those wounds are still very fresh today. Almost everyone else we have come to know and love and trust as family have pruned themselves from our chosen family tree by one form or another of deceit or devious behavior. With so few friends to call on this year, my favorite aspect of the holidays is going to be a bit tricky.

THAT is what I was going to post about… My favorite thing about the holiday season is cooking for the people I love. Every year, My Sweetheart and I put out an open invitation to everyone we know to join us for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. I don’t think that’s going to happen this year. Instead, we have decided that we aren’t even going to celebrate on the same day as the rest of the country. This year, we will be celebrating one day early. We lost our Diggity Dog on the day before Thanksgiving last year, so we are going to celebrate that little dog and everything else for which we are thankful on the anniversary of his passing. (Yes, I know that the date won’t be the same, but it’s the significance of the *day* that means something to us.)

And, just because we aren’t going to expect to feed a family the size of an army, don’t think I won’t be cooking up a feast. I’m already looking for a couple of new recipes to include in this year’s menu on Food.com. I’ve been a member of the site since it was called RecipeZaar.

My username there is “LoveToCookHateToClean,” so if you have a recipe to help brighten our season a little bit, let me know in the comments here or find me in the community pages there. I love learning new dishes for My Sweetheart.

Are the holidays a difficult time for you, too? Share your coping strategy in the comments. I need all the help I can get.

My Forever-broken Heart

Last week, on the day before the nation sat down together to share a feast of gratitude and celebrate thankfulness with friends and loved ones, my household suffered the tragic loss of a very special family member when our Diggity Dog was struck by a car near our home. Diggity had been My Sweetheart’s constant companion for four years, husband to my Akiane (“Mommie”), father of 16 beautiful pups (including my LB). Diggity was such an awesome little dog that 12 of the 16 pups he and Mommie created were adopted by our friends and family who wanted to have an awesome little dog of their own. My Sweetheart and I love that little guy as much as we could love a human child and we are heartbroken beyond words.

This is how we remember him: Diggity Dog

 

Humbug Hangover

The holiday season that leads to a new year can be, for some, pretty stressful. I guess it is for me, too, despite the fact that our household doesn’t really celebrate much beyond Thanksgiving. 

I think it’s pretty lame that I let the season get me down, and I have known that it’s an issue for about a decade, but this year I realized how much the season’s affect on me effects my entire household. As usual, I tuned out at about the time we finished the last of the Thanksgiving turkey and I haven’t really tuned in before this week.

I more or less left my family to fend for themselves and my sweetheart has really done so much in and around the house that shows me he want to be a part of my purpose-finding mission that I am very nearly speechless in my gratitude. While he has brought a lot into the house, he has also been dedicated to managing what was already there and he’s even been de-cluttering! I am so lucky to have him!

Now, it’s time for me to get back in the swing of repurposedkate, online and off. Please excuse my absence; hopefully it won’t be happening again soon.