Let's move this business one more time, that's three moves in one year, I think that's enough!!

   It is said that if your dreams don't scare you, you're not dreaming big enough.  Well, mine just got terrifying.  This year has held a tremendous amount of emotion, and we still have four months to go.  And what I do today will make the next six months very shaky.  Not with doubt, fear, or confusion.  But with exhaustion, determination, and just pure force of will.  Although, I am unsure how I will handle the stress load.  If the last three four days are any indication, it's not looking so well for the ones I love most (animals included.). 
   This next month is going to be grueling. I will be tired, sore, hungry, cranky and a jerk.  Will it be worth it?  Yes.  Does this make the future very bright for me and mine? Yes.  Will it take all I have to balance yet another Life change?  Yes.  I feel pressure.  Unnecessary, but pressure none the less.
   I guess the trepidation I feel is that I'm losing my grip on all I have worked at to remain and live in a positive light.  Stress does that to me, makes me second guess everything I do and say, makes me worry that if I even have any down time in my Gratitude, someone I love will bare the onslaught of my poor behavior.
   I need to give myself a break.  Really.  I need to stop worrying.  I can do this.  I've already proven I can do it, twice.  What is one more time?
   So, with that said, let's change the tune of this post....

I am beyond excited to share that I have been given a wonderful opportunity by a member of our community to have a much more permanent and home-felt location for my little massage therapy business. I am beyond Grateful and humbled by this chance to take this wee tiny, one woman business to a new-to-me location.  I think we will fit much better in this spot.  I believe that my clients, both existing and new, will find it more conducive to a relaxing and healing environment.  I just have to get the space ready, in less than a month.  Yup, you read that right.  Less than a month.  I'm nothing if not ambitious!! Right?!

So, in the days to come, I will be tired and chasing my phone and clients and paint brushes from one spot to another to home to pick up the kid to taking care of my clients to paint again, to home.  Wave at me if you see me, send me a smile if you think of it.  But please don't be offended if I don't slow down and chat, or rush off half out of my mind.  I'm juggling, and for the next few weekss I think that is just how its going to have to be.  I'm okay with that.  In the end I can say that I earned the minute to rest... next year. :)

If there is one thing that is constant in our lives, it is change.  The sooner we can accept change, the quicker the Universe can return the goodness that you put out into the World.  I have been Blessed with hands that work, and know all too well how to work hard.  I will use them until there is no more, Go, in them.  I'm a girl that likes to do as much of it on my own as I can.  Wish me Good Vibes!! 

Sending you Love, Light,and Bright Blessings
Norms

Your First Birthday not here...

Happy Birthday. I miss you so much. If there is any lesson that I have learned in your going on, it is that where you are now, there is no pain, no suffering and you are whole and well.  It is much harder for those left behind in the wake of you, but we will carry on.
Today makes 60 yrs. For most of us here, that is young. Too young to have to leave.  It still makes me feel sad to think that your time was cut short. Sometimes, good people have greater demand elsewhere. You gave us all you could, in wisdom, while you were here. I have to believe that it will help get us through. Just that sometimes, the thought of just sitting with you for a few minutes would make everything better.
It's hard to transition my thoughts as a human to know that you are never far from me now, ever. Your physical form is missed so much.
I love you so much. I'm so Grateful for you. I'm so honored that you are my dad. That you loved me with all my flaws.  That I was special to you, that I was worth it.  That you told me that all the time.  That you made sure that I knew how much you loved me.
I think that is my biggest regret, that I can't spend the rest of your years here telling you the very same things. How much I love you, even with all your flaws.  How special you are to me, how much I love you and am so very Grateful that you gave me what you could.  I just hope beyond hope that you hearing me now. We were so good about telling eachother we loved eachother.  You and I were good about it.  Maybe is was the distance, the understanding of being apart. Both.  Maybe.
Living in grief is a difficult state, with Grattitude I hope to find a less painful way to understand our loss of you.  Everyday is a lesson learned, it was when you were here and should be still.  You would want it that way.
I love you Dad.

My first Father's Day without you...

It has been quite awhile since I have had any time at all to sit and write.  I've noticed Life hand me a set of obstacles of late and I've been pretty damn frustrated.  Its funny how its in the most frustrating of times that I have reflections and thoughts come to me about learning Gratitude. At lunch today, I told Travis that its just given us more lessons to learn from.

We bought our first home, May 28th of this year.  It has been the most terrifying, happy, astonishing, surprising, rewarding, wonderful experience. 

 I never saw this coming, not this soon.  I know we have been making great strides to be in good standing.  I knew from the start, you were trying to help even from beyond.  That the chances we were getting to better our Lives since your passing was in huge part to the fact that you kept on working from that side to make things happen for all of us here.  I know, you know, I kept thanking you.  You kept on delivering.

 You have always helped us take great steps to better people, encouraging us, pats on the back.  Pointers when you think we needed them, and were open to taking them.  I see that now, this Father's Day more than I had on any other.  It isn't any wonder to me that you would still work so hard beyond the grave to make sure we are standing at the top of the steps, even if they are just the ones to the our new home.

I have been putting myself under an incredible amount of stress the last three weeks.  Juggling a growing business, moving from a rental home to our first owned home, running a household in two houses, trying to put things away, stay on top of things.  Travis and I are exhausted.  Sleep is hard for me, lots on my mind.


Then, putting photo albums away today, I opened one to this page. 

I miss you.  I can't thank you enough for always making things possible for us.  I missed you in the Black Hills, you would've LOVED it.  I could feel you sitting next to me as those western singers sang, "They called the wind Maria" from Paint Your Wagon.

I can see you clear as day in my new-to-me kitchen, opening all the cupboards to find a glass for milk to go with your cookies.  

I see you in Reza's mannerisms, In Caroline's curiosity, in Naenah's want for knowledge. And I'm so damn glad that you got to spend their first Christmas' with each of them.  That you got to greet them in their arrivals on this plane.

I love you. 

I never even thought about how hard it would be this first Father's Day through.  Travis' 8th one.  We will always celebrate, but I will miss you at every single one.

Happy Father's Day Daddy.  I love you.

Charles Keven Moore

At 12:48 am January 14th 2015, my Dad passed peacefully to the Summer-lands.  He calls it Heaven.  My wee little family and I made it there just four and a half hours before he took that last breath.  The days after,  up until this very day have been a pretty surreal experience.
12 weeks prior to this date, Dad went into his oncologist and found out that the treatment that he was on at the time was no longer working.  They made plans and moved him to an aggressive chemotherapy treatment and schedule.  What we didn't know, is that in those weeks to follow, the treatment wasn't taking.  We noticed his loss of appetite, weight loss, and over all health declining.  We thought it was all signs of the adverse effects of the chemo.  Now, we know that it wasn't that at all.  We believe the new treatment made the cancer more aggressive, and all those signs, were signs that he was slowly slipping away.
So, we were in just as much shock as he was when the doctor came in to the hospital room he was in, admitted for what we thought was pneumonia, and told us it was time told us it was time to take Dad home and make him as comfortable as possible.  That the cancer had spread to the lining of his lungs and there was just nothing more to be done. He had seven days to two months to live.
Rita called and told me that her and Mom were so sure he would make the week.  And just like that, with the help of Rita's frequent flyer miles, we got there in just enough time for him to recognize us, cry some tears, and for my little girl to tell him goodnight one more time before she went to bed.  Then we sat those last hours, in sadness and tears and heartbreak and....
I am a person of a different strain of faith, but that does not mean that I don't believe in things that most do.  My dad was having difficulty taking deep breaths and his breathing was very labored.  All of the sudden, an hour before my Dad slipped from us, I could tell the Angels, his escorts had arrived for him.  His breathing switched from labored and loud, to calm, deep and quiet.  As though those escorts were just waiting for his physical body to be done.  As though to give us, the living, one last beautiful memory to remember him by.  I kid you not, I saw one last smile before that last deep breath.
Am I so lucky to have been there in his last moments?  Should I be so Grateful?  There are some that say there is no dignity in death.   I disagree.  It is the most honorable thing to do for someone who loved you so, who sacrificed for you and cared for you.  It maybe in the end that it comforts you more than it does the dead.  I wouldn't change it for anything.  I'm so Grateful he hung on, that he loved me and mine so much so that he fought for me to have one last moment with him.To his very last breath he showed me how much he loved us.
I'm pretty sure now, that my Dad spent most of his adult life looking for ways to make sure we all knew how much he loved us.  And as a result, I find myself thinking, and doing more to show my loved ones how much I love them. I made the phone call today to two of the most important people I have in my Life today, Dad and Mom's best friends.  Only took a month and a half to compose myself enough to call and hear their voices, it was a good chat.  I told them that Dad Loves me, that he never ever not took the time to tell me.  That is one thing in my Life I will always know.  Daddy loved me.