Faith's Mom's Blog

Faith and I barely made it through Christmas before she got hit hard with the flu bug. (Which is why this blog post is a bit delayed!) Leading up to the night of the 25th, we were enjoying lots of music, goodies, and family time.  One event that has become a tradition for us is going to the Nutcracker ballet. This year's performance marked the 8th one in a row that we have attended! We love everything about the Nutcracker - the music, the costumes, the different scenes, the talented dancers, seeing some of our friends onstage, and the seasonal excitement in the atmosphere! Ready to go to the Nutcracker! Of course, the week after the Nutcracker always proves to be a busy one, as it is one week before Christmas! Faith had her usual therapies and while she was at her day program, I would do all of my running around. During one of the gift shopping excursions, I ran into my brother Todd! We had lots of fun catching up, right there at Fleet Farm!  My little bro and I hanging out at...

Remember David Letterman's Top 10 lists? That was back in the day when late night TV was actually funny! This was also when music was really great, and I faithfully listened to the Top 40 countdown every Saturday. And around New Years, the DJ would play the top songs of the year!  I guess thinking about these things inspired me to come up with my own list. As a final nod to 2024, I looked back at all the posts I have ever written and have listed the ones that had the most views this past year. I found it interesting that posts I have written long ago were still being read in 2024!   10. Goodbye to Our Special Tomato Adaptive Car Seat  Faith at the age of 9 in her adaptive car seat. This post from 2012 describes how Faith had finally outgrown the adaptive car seat she needed when we did not have an accessible van. The car seat fit in the backseat of my Hyundai Elantra. The adaptive car seat was great, but I don't miss the days of picking her up out of her chair and pu...

This year has certainly been a mix of blessings and challenges. Faith kicked off the New Year by getting another UTI. Along with that, she somehow managed to break a bone in her wrist and had increased anxiety due to some staff changes at her day program.  Also, she had gotten a new chair last August and we've already had to make numerous repairs and adjustments. All of these things have resulted in many extra appointments with doctors and specialists, including a urologist, orthopedist, psychiatric nurse practitioner, and DME technician.  Thankfully, the broken bone in her wrist healed on its own! We also got some good news that the slight curve in her spine has not gotten any worse and she doesn't seem to be having any pain in her back or hips.  We still don't have answers for the recurrent UTIs, and she is recovering from another one as I write this. I have tried a few different supplements to prevent them but haven't found the right one yet.  Hitting a huge miles...

At the beginning of 2018 I had come up with the idea to post an inspirational meme for every day of the year. I called it #365DaysOfInspiration. Part of the reason for doing so was because of all the negativity and bad news that seemed to be flooding Facebook. I figured my inspirational posts could be at least one positive thing that people could see each day. Little did I know how much my Facebook friends would come to appreciate these little nuggets of inspiration. One lady even told me that she wrote every one of them down in a little journal. Another told me these little blips of inspiration kept her going on some of her most difficult days. Many people shared that whatever I had posted for the day was just what they needed. After faithfully posting for 365 days, one of my friends said, "Thank you for the 365 inspirational posts. I enjoyed the variety of quotes, often feeling challenged to think more about it through the day. I know this took a lot of time and effort. So...