2014 – A Last Backward Glance
Where did 2014 go? Never mind 2014, where did January go?
So 2014 is becoming a distant memory, for which I am quite grateful! Frankly put, last year was really rough but we soldiered through it and 2015 is looking fabulous!
2014 has been labelled as “the medical and emotional year” in my life. Fortunately I wasn’t one of the patients but I spent more time visiting hospitals than I have in any other year since my dear sister crushed 2 vertabrae back in the 90’s.
I’m just going to bullet point the events – just for my own records of the year and then get to the good stuff…… (there’s always good stuff!)
- My cousin passed away from a brain tumour
- I was weaned off chemo meds by the “2nd opinion” specialist and then back on with more severe drugs and battled with the side effects
- Casualty for Tomato after she fell off a jumping castle – fortunately nothing broken
- My friend had an operation to remove a cyst
- Mom went into heart and lung failure in May and spent 10 days in hospital
- Mom was very weak and wasn’t able to return home
- Running backwards and forwards to fetch my mom from my brother to run errands
- Packing up my mom’s home – getting rid of a lot of things that were precious to her
- In August Mom’s blood sugar was very high – admitted again for 3 days
- Kyle passed away in his mom’s arms (this will be emblazoned on my soul forever) Click here to see the blog dedicated to Kyle
- Tomato was admitted to hospital for 4 days for a bacterial infection
- My friend underwent radioactive therapy for 3 days in hospital to get rid of thyroid cancer cells
- Another friend broke her ankle and was in and out of hospital
- Another family member diagnosed with RA
- Geyser burst
- Lettuce ran and dived onto the driveway with Tomato’s new glasses rendering them irrepairable
- House was struck by lightning and we lost 2 small TVs and HD on hubby’s pride an joy flat screen. Gate motor was zapped along with lights, some plugs, DVD player etc
- Eczema, RA pain, dark days with no sleep………
HIGHLIGHTS
- Tomato started Grade 2
- Bacon started Grade 0 and wore a uniform for the first time
- Lettuce was introduced to his first pizza-making experience
- I met many family members for the first time
- Had a great catch up of 40 years with another cousin over coffee
- Went on holicay to my friend’s farm
- Had a “Frozen” party for the girls
- Friends vistited from afar
- Bacon got to take Honey Bear for the weekend from school and we had adventures
- Tomato received a merit certificate
- Tomato received an achievement award in final assembly
- Bacon received the highest honour at her school and a gold ribbon
- My cousin came to visit from the UK and I met her boys
- Dorothy and family came from Oz
- Finding a solution for Tomato’s eczema
CHANGES
- Tomato and Bacon changed schools in the second term and are thriving
- Packed up my mom’s house
- Mom moved into a retirement village
- Tomato’s skin!
After having quite a challenging year, I was looking forward to December for it all to be over with!! But November was the turn-around. I met Sean, Shawn and Shaun in the space of a week! Thanks to my friend Chucky and things began to change…. for the better! Ok to be honest the last Shaun didn’t do anything but it fitted into my story 🙂
Christmastime was relaxed and fun. We had a quiet family Christmas and I actually got to talk to Dorothy from Oz for a few hours, not the usual frenetic conversations we’ve had in past years. We took B, L and T to the Christmas house and they loved it. I bought 10 new Christmas books and hid one of them in the house each night and we played the hot and cold game to find them. Then I would read the new book each night. The kids loved it.
To bid farewell to 2014 we thought we’d have some fun! So we asked the kids where they wanted to go and they said Spur. Hmmm not our favourite but no problem, because there was a Spur where we wanted to go, so we could do it all.
So we drove to Emperor’s Palace in the late afternoon on New Year’s eve and dutifully went to Spur. Then when the sun had set we hit Santa’s Playground, which was a mini fun fair for the kids. They went wild!! First we went on the Ferris Wheel, then the rollercoaster train, then the kids went on the cars and motorbikes. Tomato wanted to go on the spider, which I wasn’t thrilled about, but fortunately once we were strapped in, she chickened out, which meant I could get out of doing it too – yay! After that we found a loooong windy slide and the kids did that a few times and then after the kids had done the little sail boat rides,
Then little Lettuce, all of 3 years old, wanted to go on the shells! Eeek! There was a little boy who was on the shell at the time with his mom (probably 6 years old) and he was sobbing and shrieking to get off, so the girls were put off and I thought that would disuade Lettuce too, but nope, he was keen. So on he and I went. 2 days later I still have vertigo from that ride but Lettuce L-O-V-E-D it!! The first thing he said when it finished was “I wanna go again!” Thank goodness we had run out of tickets!!
We then went to see the beautiful Garden of Lights which was even better than previous years and then back to the car. On the way to the car Tomato picked up R100 worth of tickets that some unfortunate person had dropped, so back we went to Santa’s Playground and they chose to do the long slide again and again and again and then we were off home. The kids were transferred to their beds from the car as it was after 10pm and they were exhausted and Hubby and I had a relaxing time celebrating the start of 2015 at home.
Perhaps to be more specific, hubby and I stayed up to make sure that 2014 left!!!
I know that 2014 was seriously bad, but I am grateful that all the bad happened in 2014 because 2015 is gonna rock even in more in comparison and it’s going to remind me to be even more grateful.
Onward and upward!!
Can’t wait to get my teeth into 2015
