​May Day! or Mayday?
Yesterday was May Day or Mayday? May Day is the first day of May and is traditionally honored by hanging flowers on people’s doors. Mayday is an emergency procedure used mostly in radio communications. I’m using it as a wake-up call for myself to get back on track with my Healthy Year. March was a minefield of emotional bombs and April…well it was just insanely busy!
I’m setting two Healthy goals for this month. The first one is to check AND record my blood sugar each morning. I usually check it every morning but have not been recording it in the glucose tracker I installed on my phone. My goal this month is to keep up with doing that each morning with my fasting blood sugar. The second goal is to have a No Complaining Month. I am going to work to catch myself when I want to complain and re-think it. I want to focus on being much more thankful for what I have rather than complaining about it. I am going to track that by using the Happier App and the one sentence journal tool in there to write down how it’s going. The idea isn’t perfection, but awareness. If can become aware of when I have the tendency to complain, I can refocus my mind and think about why I’m complaining. Is it just mindless complaining? Is it something I can change about myself? Is there something I can do differently? I’m also going to put a bracelet on one wrist and switch it back and forth when I catch myself in complaining to help with being cognizant of when it’s happening. 

​Earlier this week, I had a strange thing happen with my atomic clock in my living room. I woke up one morning and it was set to March 2000. I laughed it off and then I went ahead and reset it the next day since it hadn’t reset itself.
When I posted about it on Facebook page, I had someone make the comment that they’d like to go back to 2000. My immediate response was that I would too, it would give me another 20 years with Tom.
Then I got to thinking about all the pain and joy and laughter and hurt from those years. Tom losing his mom and stepdad, our house fire, moving into this home, graduations (high school and college), marriages, grandkids being born, the cancer diagnosis, losing Tom’s dad, the cancer journey, and losing Tom. These are just the tip of the iceberg from the last 22 years. Lots of memories, both good and bad, are piled into those years. If I COULD go back, I would get Tom to go to the doctor sooner. I would have insisted we annoy the heck out of the medical profession until we figured out what was going on with him. Maybe we could have caught it soon enough to save him.
But as you all know, we can’t turn back time. We can only go forward with what we have. I am thankful for all of those years with Tom and if I could go back and do them again, I would. Because it would mean more time with him. I think sometimes how I’d like him to hold me just one more time. But then I know, it would not be enough. I miss him so much. 

​First off, sorry for the long time since my last post! April was just incredibly busy and writing kept getting put on the back-burner. ☹
Now, on to my post. This is not my typical blog post. But it has been swirling around in my mind the last few weeks, so it was time to write about it.
Unless you live under a rock or completely avoid TV and social media, you’ve heard by now that Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the end of March during the Academy Awards ceremony. I am not a big Oscar’s fan; I never watch them. I will usually read who won what, but most of the time, I have never even heard of the movies that have been nominated for the different awards. I am not going to get into the logistics of who was right and who was wrong or who was more wrong, etc. They are both in the wrong. Chris Rock should definitely not have made fun of Jada and her medical condition, and Will Smith most certainly should not have slapped him for it. Something I used to tell my children (my own and the ones I cared for over the years); “It is okay to be angry. It is not okay to smack someone when you’re angry”. So that is all I am going to say about that.
What I want to comment on is that over the last several years, the Academy Awards have seemed to lose a lot of their popularity and have been declared irrelevant and out of touch by many different individuals and groups. I even saw comments that people would not have even known they were on if it weren’t for the “slap heard round the world”. So, now, more than a month after the ceremony, I still cannot go a single day without hearing or seeing something about it. I would say it’s the first time I have known anyone (in my lifetime) to still be talking about the ceremony more than a day or two after it happened. So, at the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, what if this is all some huge publicity ploy? What if this is a way to make the awards relevant again and gain people’s attention? Has anyone else had these thoughts? Just tossing this out to see what others have been thinking about the situation. 

3-17-22
Dear Tom,
Justin Bieber has a song called “Ghost” and when I heard the lyrics, they really spoke to me. Then I watched the video (it’s the story of a grandmother and grandson mourning the loss of the grandpa) and I was crying so hard. The lyrics that really get to me are:
Youngblood thinks there's always tomorrow
I miss your touch on nights when I'm hollow
I know you crossed a bridge that I can't follow
 
Since the love that you left is all that I get
I want you to know that if I can't be close to you
I settle for the ghost of you
I miss you more than life (more than life)
 
And if you can't be next to me
Your memory is ecstasy
I miss you more than life
I miss you more than life.
 
As I was listening to this song a few days ago and thinking about it, I just started laughing. Because you were not a fan of Justin Bieber AT ALL! The fact that a song he sings reminds me so much of you…well, it’s just really kind of hilarious. But the words are just so true, especially the “I miss you more than life”. Because I do miss you every day.
 
Today is the anniversary of the day we saw the oncologist for the first time. I will never forget the words “Your cancer is treatable, but not curable. This is serious enough that you need to get your end-of-life affairs in order.” I am thankful for the 3 ½ years we had together after that. But I definitely miss you more than life.
Love, Tracy


Link to the song: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp8msa5uYsc

​Well, hello there March! Maybe third time will be the charm?
Here it is a new month with new possibilities. I would say I did so-so on my goals for February. Since I was sick in January, I have had a hard time maintaining my walking every day goal. But I am not getting down on myself. I am still doing more than I used to do and feeling bad about myself is not going to help me do better moving forward. So here are my goals for March:
 
Walk 20 minutes a day/get at least 8000 steps a day Monday-Friday
Track blood sugars and food intake
Drink water
Devotional/journal
Read
Clean for 15
Say positives to myself in the mirror each day and say one thing out loud to myself that I am thankful for that day.
Eat two servings of fruits and two servings of vegetables a day
 
Have a great day everyone!

Two years ago today was the day that the doctor told us that he thought it best to stop Tom's chemo treatments. So today, I am looking for my brave face.

​The Brave Face
For the world,
I put on my brave face.
I pretend I’m okay,
When inside,
My heart is breaking.
My loneliness is,
Eating away at me,
To the world,
I say “I’m fine”,
Inside, I’m not.
The loneliness, the sadness,
It’s a lot to feel.
To the world,
I am strong.
To myself,
I feel weak.
Time to put on,
The brave face.

​February’s non-fiction book reading was “When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing” by Daniel H. Pink.
This book was lent to me by one of my colleagues at work. The book is heavy on research into the perfect timing of completing tasks. Some of it was a little dry, but overall it had some great nuggets.

1. There are tips about combatting a mid-life slump. These include things like writing a letter of self-compassion to yourself, prioritizing your goals, and waiting. Yes, sometimes waiting can be the best course of action. There have been a few times in my life where inaction was actually beneficial in the long run.
2. The book talked about the importance of timing different tasks. I won’t go into it too much here. I will say that I think we all have our own rhythms in life and we have to figure out what works best for us (and worry less about what other think). For example, I tend to be very much a morning person. I can get a lot done early in the morning, but have a serious mid-day slump where I struggle to do anything! Figure out your own patterns and find a way to work with them instead of against them.
3. The book has an exercise you can do to help you determine our own patterns.

 
 
The book had a lot of good information. I would definitely suggest reading it over listening to it on audio. There are a lot of diagrams and examples in the book that would make little sense in audio format. If you like this type of book, you may enjoy the book. I would suggest checking it out from the library or borrowing it from a friend before buying it. Then if you like it well enough, you can purchase it. 

2-18-22
Dear Tom,
Today it has been 18 months since you left us.
1 ½ years
549 days
13,176 hours
790,560 minutes
Since I last saw you. Since I last held your hand. Since I last hugged you. I do not think there has been a day in the last year and a half that I have not cried at least once about how much I miss you. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had plenty of happy moments too. But even those are a little bittersweet because I cannot share them with you.

​
Recently, I wrote this poem:
You are gone
I was just hit,
With a wave,
Of missing you.
Wish I could
Pretend I don’t miss you,
But I do.
Your kind eyes,
Your loving smile,
Your gentle hands.
Sometimes the pain,
Is like a tiny needle,
In my heart.
But sometimes it’s,
Like a million needles,
All poking my heart,
Together,
To remind me that…
You are gone. 

​God brings the people into your life that you need. That need may be for a season or for a lifetime, but God is watching out for you.
Last summer, I enrolled in GriefShare through a church in Enid. I met some really great people in the class and the class was very helpful for me in the grieving process. In the class, I met these two ladies, Susan and Judy. As we were getting to the end of our sessions, I was thinking to myself that I would really like to keep spending time with them afterwards and get to know them better. About three weeks after our last meeting was the anniversary or Tom’s death. They invited me out to lunch that day. I was hesitant to go because I knew I wasn’t going to be great company that day. But then I thought “If anyone can understand that, these two ladies can”. So I went and I am so glad I did. They were so excited and happy for me when I got my new job. We have supported and reached out to each other over the last few months and they have been such a blessing for me.
Sunday night, I hosted a Galentine’s Party and they came. It was the most wonderful night. We ate, we chatted, we laughed, we played a game of Farkle. It was just good for my soul. I desperately miss my Valentine, but I am thankful for these Galentine’s that God brought into my life. 

​When you’re grieving, you never know what can send waves of grief crashing through you. Yesterday, it was breaking this little saucepan. I was scrubbing it and the handle just snapped. This pot was something that Tom brought to our household when we moved in together. It was our “go-to” pot for heating soup. It brought back memories of Tom heating soup for me when I was sick (or me doing the same for him). Making soup for the kids when they were sick. When I de-cluttered some pots/pans a few years ago, it was one of the ones that I kept. So when that handle snapped off in my hand yesterday, I just burst into tears. It took me until today to go ahead and throw it away. It probably seems silly to cry over breaking a pot, but grief is that way. It comes out of nowhere and grabs you and you just don’t know when or why it’s going to happen.
Valentine’s Day is Monday. Those of you who still have your Valentine’s in your lives, treasure them. I miss mine so much.