Today marks 8 months.

8 months since we went from celebrating a great Christmas to picking up pieces of our lives amidst the rubble of our home.

I still pinch myself and think, ‘How in the world did this happen to me? Is this real?’ But then the upstairs apartment neighbor flushes his toilet and hearing the rush of the water through the thin walls lets me know it isn’t a dream.

We are getting very close to going home. I seriously cannot wait until we can go in and sit down and just soak up the quiet and the stillness in that house!

So much has happened this year, from the stupid tornado to losing mom, to my silly parody band getting actual gigs, to my company being acquired. The kids have started another school year and the family has learned that while we love each other very much, we all very much need space of our own!

I still don’t know how we’ll go about letting each of you know how much your support has meant to us. The kindness we’ve experienced still makes me all verklempt when I think too long about it. Just know that it’s pretty much what has kept us going.

This year has forever changed our family. My kids will be different people for having gone through it. We have a deeper respect for mother nature and will never take insurance for granted.

I’d also like to take this post to publicly apologize to my kids and husband for the lunatic I’ve been the past 8 months. I can’t promise all the crazy will go away when we get back into the house, but at least when I do get a little, um, high strung, y’all can send me to my craft room for some alone time!