Earl, Change & Thanks!

Before I get into the other stuff, I wanted to take a minute to thank those of you who have been keeping my mom in your prayers. I think they are working! I didn't mention anything about it because I've been a little scared, but on Wednesday morning I got a call that stopped me in my tracks. Myself, my sister and brother were summoned to the hospital where my mom has been for going on one month now. She has a laundry list of things that are wrong so its hard to say "she's got this" or "this is what's wrong" because it varies from day to day. Basically we thought we were losing her....as did the doctors. I live an hour and a half away on a good day, but currently the Garden State Parkway is under major construction and it took over 2 hours to get there. My brother and sister are both closer. As I was about 45 minutes away I got a text from my brother to slow down...that she was OK. Turned out that she had, in fact, died twice the night before and NOT ONE DOCTOR called us until 8:30am the following day. They were able to revive her but needed us there to get her paperwork in order for a Living Will, DNR, etc. because what they did to revive her was not extreme but given the fact that her wishes were unknown, and the fact that she's old and not in good health, they would not have done anything more. Thank GOD she responded to what they did do and I still have my mom today. She is by no means out of the woods, but I have to believe that all of the prayers being said for her are being answered. We joke that my mom is like a cat....except she appears to have way more than 9 lives! I know in my heart that the end is near....maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even next month...but I am so grateful to have her TODAY. So thank you, from my family and most especially ME.

This layout has been in progress on my desk for over 24 hours! I NEVER take this long. I just couldn't get it to flow the way I wanted...I originally had a bird/cage theme going and changed directions to the butterflies because I just love that quote which I used for the title. "Without change, there'd be no butterflies". I used Fancy Pants Happy Together papers, a Martha Stewart butterfly punch, the bling I added with my brandy new i-Rock tool that I got using a 40% coupon at Michaels! The title letters are Jenni Bowlin and Anna Griffin. The swirl is Heidi Grace and the hinges I cut on my Cricut.

And finally, we stopped by the beach this evening to see what Earl was churning up.  In case you didn't know, I live in NJ and am only 1/2 mile from the Bay and a few more miles from the ocean. The sunset was breathtaking and the waves, while not as bad as we were anticipating, were definitely a sight to behold. Nature is beautiful and I just wanted to share a few photos!  All of these were taken on Brigantine Beach...some looking towards the ocean, the others with the Atlantic City Skyline behind the jetty.