I found this in my email, wow ! how things have changed , and haven't

Well, i was driving back home today and i realized that i know the "awe" funk that I've been in ,where it was coming from. It's been a year already,and i miss everyone so much , the cousins growing , turning 7, wow i can't believe how fast it went. we have had such a whirl wind of a year, I read about our old East street area getting the repairs it desperately needed . i think it flooded my brain with what ifs, i miss my old neighbor very much we had our chit chat sessions alot and dished and shared . what a year . OK ,do you have a minute or two cause i haven't wrote in a while..... OK ,august 04 we were at the charlie horse having dinner like we did so many times but this was different when we were driving and crying home we were questioning everything . then we had a great dinner /get together with everyone at Lorenzo's the way it should be ,we cried all the way 'home' wondering if we were making the right choice. this wasn't an easy decision, but when i look at my babies playing in their neighbor hood with the great bunch of kids and neighbors we have , i sit sometimes and think , wow ! this is why. we came here in Sept 04 and from the get go it was rough ,new city literally nothing here but a circle k (7/11) and a brand new supermarket and a few local stops in between, we were shocked to say the least at what we had decided. I told Elio if i wake up to a u-haul packed i will not blink twice i would have gone .... With in a few weeks we totaled our car that we had paid to ship out . T-Bone i think they called it ,,,,i chuckle now only because we were fine nobody was hurt but holy cow the brand spanking new Jaguar that hit us ....OUCH....LOL , and we got a new caravan which we really needed anyway. we started looking at the houses and made a decision that we would start the process . but at any giving time if we said " lets go" ,we would. we had the cow $h!t stank alot and flies up the kazoo, nothing was going right , still looking for the u-haul.... then Halloween came,hmmmm i like the trick or treating in a costume with no rain. warm enough but chilly enough to get a fall feeling . that alot of people had fire pits in cul de sacs handing out candy shaking hands ,meeting and greeting ,now we were beginning to see that something is different here. November came we had a strange thanksgiving ,doors open, windows open ,smells waifing . no condensation building up, weird !. oh cvs opened ....a little more normalcy. sad that we define normal by what "they" surround us with . we home sick beyond belief , we know Christmas is coming and the pit is growing. And that we are strongly missing everyone. hugs ,cheek kisses , pats on the shoulder , hand shakes, admiring our kids and paying attention to our children. we miss it all . the little things is mostly what we miss. OK i think we overcompensated for loneliness / guilt by spoiling ourselves , kids got a trampoline, Elio got a work bench for the garage, just trying to fill a void i guess, but after all was done we were OK . we had enough contact with everyone, we set up the computer camera and I M 'd and visited and was visited we had a different Christmas , that's for sure. new years eve was different , after being told that in Arizona , people go out and make lots of noise to ring in the new year . well i did not fully believe this nor did i participate ,but what i witnessed was a riot ,Elio and the rest of them running out side banging pans , clanging anything they could find and all you could here in response was the crickets chirping.... what a site to see !!!! and what a way to greet the new neighbors LOL . i needed to get more involved I was elected to the General plan committee for the city of maricopa , i made the local weekly paper picture and everything . we vote and have input to what we want to see for our new city, yes it's that new , imagine the town you live in doesn't really exist and you must start for scratch to build a city , and decide what it should progressively look like in 25 years . i was at the local library weekly to not only be seen but to get input for people around here what they wanted to see happen in "our city" In February we started to see progress on our building we had .like you all have seen thanks for sharing that with us, it was so exciting to see something new everyday . March was Amanda's birthday just another reminder of who we we're not with. but for her, it was magical. she invited over a few girlfriends and crafted , ate , and played.she had a great day . April was just as quiet / hectic Elio had been having a problem with his KIA for at least a year and it was just time to do it , he got his truck , he moved our entire house with it over the course of a weekend with Kenny huge help and a great investment . and a cool ride . may , is Jarens birthday also our house was to be finished crazy trying to set up a birthday party and move at the same time ...... then it happened, Elio had his accident at work . he had a chemical cleaner splash in his eyes and on his skin , it was the phone call i have always dreaded . he was hurt , blinded and being rushed to the trauma center , i talked to him and all he said was he couldn't see and he was scared . me too . it was 1 o' clock in the morning and i had no idea where this place he was being taken to was . so i called Kenny and him and Debbie came in minutes to watch the kids and bring me there . it felt like a super long drive to get there , i had no idea what i was walking in to . i arrived there and was told he was there and was being treated and they would get us information soon...... after 1/2 an hour Kenny asked why we couldn't go in and they finally said we could . I walked into the room and seeing the love of my life sitting in that chair with the acrid smell of chemical in the air his eyes swollen completely shut , minor burns appearing on his hair line and in his hair i didn't know what to believe . the doctor came in and wanted to do an evaluation on him and at that moment i imagined him never seeing his babies again or his new house we finished moving into a day earlier . his both of his eyes were cataracts white and looked like scrambled egg whites , swollen and in pain 2 morphine shots later he was getting some relief . he needed help going to the bathroom , we got him some breakfast he ate blind. we were told we would have to wait till morning to find out the full extent of his injury . it was a long time and he was getting rest all i kept thinking was this man whom i fell in love with 18 years ago and have been married too doesn't deserve this his sons 4 th birthday was in 2 days he needs to watch him blow out candles , how are we going to put together his ride on atv we have sitting in a box . what the hell is going on ? at the optamologist he put some pain killer eye drops to help with the pain ,and when he pulled Elio's eyes open i almost lost it ..............................oh my god what now? but Elio said he saw a glimpse before he let his eye lid go ....we had hope. that night the kids all took turns walking him around we put salve , drops, and everything else in his eyes but he had alot of discomfort . i had to get the ride on car put together so i dragged it into the kitchen , and tried my best to get it done but with carpal tunnel i don't have the strength to turn very much . i know that this must be bothering Elio not to be able to assemble this car , so he sat on the floor and i helped to guide his hand to the bolt and we got the dang thing put together just fine . we always work great as a team . and the next day he started to peek through a little slit in his eyes he saw some of Jarens birthday , thank god . he started to get a little better each week opening a little more for a little longer , the doctor was impressed with the healing progress me was making . me too all i want is for us too watch our babies grow up to become the best and i didn't know if he would miss a huge part . he missed 7 weeks of work . on that 7 th weel he go a call from sysco that a supervisor position was opening up and would he like to be consider for it....well yaaaaa!!! he went back to work