The Swarrell Life

Let me start by saying that we have had a busy spring and summer. Really busy spring and summer. As I sit here typing this, our brand new car just went in for its second service appointment at the dealership because we hit 10,000 miles in less than three months. That’s a lot of driving! However, before I proceed to bore you with a mile-by-mile recap, let’s back up a bit and give you a bit of background. Warning: THIS IS A REALLY LONG READ! The Bravest Little Girl I Know! Autumn and I have a seven-year-old daughter, Trinity.   When she was nine months old she received a brain injury. She was in intensive care for about two weeks, during which time she had seizures and ended up blind for about six weeks. After exhaustive testing it is still unknown what exactly happened. The short version is that somehow her brain was deprived of oxygen and/or blood flow for too long. She has fairly significant scarring in her brain, mostly in the back part. No I don’t know the medical term ...

 If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this post is worth five thousand words. Believe that? Me either. But in keeping with tradition, I do have a few  words to add. Pictures are great! Pictures are awesome! Pictures are deceptive. Pictures never ever ever tell the whole story. That's why, although pictures do contain an intrinsic narrative, they usually need some actual words to go along with them so that someone does not get the wrong idea. So that's what I am going to do; I am going to explain the photos. Wow, that sounds really boring. I'm actually amazed your still reading this. That was so boring I just fell asleep typing it. Snore. WAKE UP!!!  Okay, now that I have your full and undivided attention (actually I am fully aware that you just tweeted six times in the time it took me to type that last sentence. I get it.), Let's take a look at a couple of photos. As background, let me start with the fact that our family has been skiing together for...

Let's call this post mortem, for several reasons. The first is because, well, the mermaid died. At the hand of my wife. I'll remind you that she does know how to cut bodies open, and does so regularly. So yeah, professional operations happen here at our house. The second reason for the post mortem is so that we can all learn from this experience and be better prepared moving forward. Take notes. Exhibit A: Young female, seven years of age. Mermaid amputee, age unknown. Both seem happy (although how either can be smiling considering the location of one right-hand index finger, I have no idea). Don't worry, it gets worse, much worse. As the story goes, said finger was being used to re-shape the mermaid's bosom from the inside. The procedure appears to have begun successfully, since the bosom appears to be convex, which is appropriate. There was a slight hiccup though in phase two, since, as is obvious, said finger is still in the mermaid. It's not quite clear ...

It's always funny to start with a picture of a toilet, I don't care WHAT you're writing! It seems like this year we have taken an all time low number of photographs. Blame it on the rain, whatever, we're not snapping like we used to. I also haven't posted much here either. Coincidence? Not likely. In all honesty though, we still take plenty of pictures, many of them blurry, many of them off center, too dark, too light, you name it. We also have our share of endearing shots as well. But I tried to not post any of those here. Mainly these are shots that make me say, "hmm, that's funny!". Please keep in mind that the word "funny" has many meanings, so don't criticize the photo that didn't make you laugh. Or do. Go on with your bad self! Yeah, bathroom humor is the best! Outdoor bathroom humor is even better! Take me to your leader! Trinity was playing with a toy mermaid. She has two of them. She likes to play wit...

This might be habit forming. After discovering that I can discover things while writing the last update, I decided to do it again. Writing that is. I am not sure about the discovering part. Speaking of discovering, I discovered over the last week exactly how grumpy I can get without meaning too (lose). I also discovered how great it can be to spend the holidays with family (win), how easy it is to hurt the people you love the most (lose) and also how easy it is to go to NYC (win-more on that at a later time). The nice thing is that I can learn and grow from each of those discoveries. Okay, that's probably a stretch on the trip to NYC.  It must be fall It could be winter though, given all the snow. Time to warm up! With Trin turning 7 last month, it was time for family photos. Ain't they cute? The other two members of the family... Notice anything missing? Me too! Where's that gal? She's mowing the yard? Ha! Just kiddin...

Well, I think my last post was about Trinity's birthday and here we are again! I told Autumn that it had been a year, but looking at the date of the last post proves me wrong yet again! So here we are a year (sort of) later and a year wiser (maybe). Certainly I am a year older (I got one right!). But that also means that, you guessed it: my kids are also certainly a year older! Being that it is November, I suppose this post had better be about Trinity. So it is. My little girl is seven years old?!?!?! I will say that each year the reality of how fast time flies by hits a little harder. I distinctly remember thinking about time when Trin was born, about how long 18 years seemed. Well, I blinked and seven of those blips have disappeared into folders of digital pictures that remind me that a) I didn't take enough pictures and b) I took too many pictures. You could add in c) I need to organize them and delete all the bad ones, but I'll leave that one out for the sake...

Hmm, if you were to tell me that I have a 6 year old daughter and a 4 year old son, I would, at any time 6.75 years ago and earlier, tell you that you are crazy. That you don't know what you're talking about. I would also have you escorted out by security. So it goes. And here I am. I have a daughter that just turned six. Okay, in all procrastinating fairness, her birthday was three months ago. I simply haven't written about it. Some of that is the day to day routine that seems to discourage creativity. Wait. That's an excuse. Sometimes the day to day routine allows me an excuse to not write about things that are important. That's better. Here's my daughter, my first child: Trin is really about joy. Sure there's moments where that's not completely true. I know that. But when I zoom out and take it all in, there's not many people I know, adult or otherwise, who have lives that are as joy-filled as hers. The truth is that most of the joy sim...