Hey there,

I know, it’s been a while. Things have been really crazy since I last wrote, and I finally am ready to come back to HTC and catch you all up on what’s been going on.

Where I’ve Been:

In the last MONTH the following things have happened:

We closed on our house.

I’ve already shared all the crazy details of that journey here, but the short version of it goes a little something like this:

-Put offers in on 12 houses, get outbid on them all.

-Last offer on last house gets accepted! Hooray

-Almost loose out on house 2 times after going under contract.

-Have to close on the house and move out of apartment within 3 weeks of going under contract.

We moved from our tiny apartment into our house on my birthday: March 25th. Dustin planned a busy day for me and my sister and spoiled me rotten while he did all the moving with my brother-in-law and some friends. And while I did have an amazing day, I still felt pretty overwhelmed by the stress of moving and keeping my survivor’s guilt at bay. I have more thoughts to share on this in the next couple weeks, but overall I feel like I did a much better job managing it than I did last year. Still, it left me emotionally and physically exhausted.

A few days after my birthday, Dustin and I went out to get Sushi where he threw a belated birthday surprise at me. He told me he had wanted to get me a puppy, but ultimately decided he would rather me help pick one out instead of surprising me with one. I was so excited! We’ve been talking about getting a second pup and pal for Rosie (since she is SO much happier when Cooper comes to stay with us) but wanted to wait until we had a yard and a house. We decided we would go look at a couple puppies to get a feel of what was out there, but of course, we fell in absolute love with one of them and knew he was meant for our family. We bought him, but asked the breeder to hang on to him for one more week, because we were getting ready to pack up and fly back to Boston for my youngest sister’s wedding.

 

Friends, please meet the newest addition to the Carr family: Teddy. I promise we aren’t crazy, Dustin and I have talked about getting Rosie a baby brother for a couple years now, but knew we needed to wait and get into a house first. We decided to just look at puppies before we traveled for my sister’s wedding, but once we met Teddy, we knew he was the one for us. He is snuggly, goofy, mellow, and (although Rosie doesn’t think so, yet) the perfect little friend for her. We’re so excited for all the adventures to come with him and our sweet golden girl! . . . #heytherechelsie #myvibrantlife #goldendoodleaofinstagram #englishcream #puppiesofinsta

A post shared by Life & Style Blog | Chelsie (@heytherechelsie) on Apr 14, 2017 at 6:39am PDT

And oh man, I love love love going back to Boston, but it is a HAUL. It’s a 7-8 hour travel time and I chose to fly Rosie home with me this time because I was having some bad knee days from all the packing and moving from the week before. (Rosie is a task-trained service dog and can fly in the plane with me!) We left Salt Lake City at 4:30 PM and didn’t get to my home in New Hampshire until 2:00 AM. It was exhausting, but there is just something so comforting about sleeping surrounded the four walls that you grew up in.

The next few days were spent throwing my sister’s bridal shower, setting up for the reception, going to the temple as a family, and then spending Friday getting her ready for her first-look/bridals. I did her hair, makeup, and spent the afternoon driving around in a perfect seaside town in New England taking photos. I’m not going to lie, I produced some of my best shots to date with this shoot (and shout out to my brother-in-law for working some magic in editing them since I lost photoshop off my computer.)

Katie and Preston got married on Saturday. It was a bit chilly and windy, but the ceremony was beautiful and the reception was a blast. Because of some church meetings happening later that evening, we had an earlier reception and were completely cleaned up and home by 8:00 at night (Mormon weddings, you know?) We were tired, but looking forward to spending Sunday at the coast and celebrating my grandfather’s 80th birthday before flying back to Utah.

Bad Things Happen in 3’s…right?

Dustin’s emergecny surgery:

Within a couple hours of the wedding festivities ending, Dustin started experiencing some discomfort in his stomach. We’re actually not strangers to the kind of pain he was having; he’s been dealing with it for over a year. Every once in awhile, he would double over in crippling pain, which would last about 20-30 minutes and then pass. Every time, I was about ready to take him to the hospital and every time, it would pass as I was getting my shoes on. We thought it might be his gallbladder because his brother, sister, and father have all had issues with theirs, so we saw a specialist in Arizona about the pain over a year ago, who ordered up a bunch of tests and then never got back to us about the results. He basically dropped off the edge of the planet and we were left frustrated and lost as to what to do. So, Dustin continued to deal with the random pain attacks for another year, thinking that it must be a side effect from another condition he was diagnosed with.

Dustin’s pains didn’t go away after 30 minutes, though. They lasted all through the night, getting worse and worse until my parents convinced him to go to the Emergency Room early Sunday morning (because he refused to listen to me.) At first, it was going to be just me taking him, but thankfully, my brother-in-law and sister decided to come with me, because Dustin blacked out from the pain as we were walking into the ER and Ryan had to basically carry/drag him in. It was terrifying. It was my worst nightmare coming true: my husband in the hospital and not knowing what was wrong and walking into the hospital, not knowing if we were going to both walk out together. And while that may seem a bit dramatic, after you have seen what I have seen, it isn’t so far fetched.

Within a few hours, after they had Dustin’s pain under control, he had an ultrasound and it was finally confirmed: he had gallstones. I can’t tell you what a relief it was to hear that we finally had an answer to what had been causing him so much pain for the last couple years. This pain haunted us and terrified us; we couldn’t find a rhyme or reason for when it came, but when it did, the whole world turned upside down. We decided Dustin would be admitted to the hospital for pain control and scheduled surgery for the next morning to have his gallbladder removed.

 

Hey there, I wanted to check in with you all. 48 hours ago, we were celebrating the marriage of my youngest sister in Boston. A few hours after the festivities had ended, my darling husband started experiencing sharp stomach pains. They lasted through the night and by early morning, I knew we needed to go to the hospital. I have never been so terrified as I watched my brother-in-law basically carry/drag Dustin into the ER as he blacked out from the pain. Within a few hours, Dustin was admitted to the hospital because his gallbladder was completely obstructed and was beginning to become infected. This morning, he had surgery to remove his gallbladder before it got worse. The surgery went well! . . . This has been one of the most overwhelming, scary, and exhausting weekends of my life. Dustin is my very best friend and the love of my life, and seeing him in so much pain and not knowing what was wrong was terrifying. I am so grateful for the kind staff at Parkland Medical, for the understanding agents at @southwestair who rebooked our flights without any hassle, for both of our managers who have been so supportive and understanding of our travel plans changing, for my sister and brother-in-law who stayed by my side most of yesterday, and for our family and friends here in Boston and around the country who have reached out to us during this weekend. I love you all and feel so blessed to have you in my life. I’ll check back in soon, Xoxo, Chelsie

A post shared by Life & Style Blog | Chelsie (@heytherechelsie) on Apr 10, 2017 at 9:12am PDT

As much as I was relieved to have an answer to all the problems Dustin had been dealing with for so long, I was filled with anxiety. I had to sleep in the hospital that night with him because we didn’t know how early his surgery was going to be. I hadn’t spent a night in the hospital since my last knee surgery, so it was very hard for me to get out of the mental expectation that something bad was going to happen to me. Managing my PTSD while trying to be strong and supportive to Dustin that night was one of the most emotionally draining things I’ve had to do in a long time.

It was a good thing I spent the night there because Dustin was brought down at 7:00 AM for his surgery. I had to sit like a nervous wreck in the waiting room, but the procedure went quickly and it went well. The doctor came to talk to me and said that if we had tried to fly home to SLC, his situation would have gotten 10X worse because his gallbladder was completely impacted and infected.

We were told that Dustin would be okay to fly home on Wednesday (and after a tear-filled phone call to Southwest, we were able to rebook our flights without any additional fees.) So, we spent the rest of Monday and Tuesday resting up and taking a quiet drive to the beach house to look at the ocean. Wednesday came and we somehow made it back to SLC in one piece (even though I was the one pushing Dustin in his wheelchair, carrying all the luggage, AND towing Rosie along!) 

MEANWHILE, my brother-in-law and sister flew back on Monday like we had originally planned and picked up our puppy because we weren’t going to get to him on time. And then, within an hour of us getting back to SLC on Wednesday, I was picking up and bringing home a new puppy to our house. We were so excited about Teddy, but it was not how I imagined bringing him home. Dustin worked from home the next two days to keep resting from the surgery, but it was rough going trying to balance a new puppy, a grumpy old pup (Rosie wasn’t his biggest fan at first) and his pain. We were both exhausted going into the weekend.

Our Dishwasher Exploded

On Easter Sunday, in the middle of cooking Easter dinner, I noticed that our dishwasher hadn’t drained properly. I called Dustin over, who figured that the screens might need to be cleaned. He started taking the different screens/drains out to see if anything was clogged and before we knew it, there was water leaking ALL over our hardwood floors. We both grabbed towels, and started mopping up the water was fast as we could. Dustin decided it would be best to just take the dishwasher out together, but we quickly found out that it was hardwired INTO the floor. Once the wires were moved around, they got wet…and well, as you can imagine, it was #badnewsbears. There were some slight explosions, to which we realized we should go flip the breaker…except we didn’t know where the breaker to our house WAS! We’d only been in the house for 2.5/3ish weeks! We both ran around looking for it and finally found it, turning off the water in the process.

Thankfully my brother-in-law and sister were just around the corner, on their way up for Easter dinner. Ryan was able to help Dustin clean up the water, finagle the plumbing, and turn everything back on so that I could finish cooking Easter dinner. Dustin called our Home Warranty company and arranged a technician to come out and look at the dishwasher the next day. But even after that, I still felt like we might have another bad thing coming our way.

Car Accident

I got into my first car accident on my way home from work the following Friday. It wasn’t too bad, thank goodness, and could have been a lot worse. I’m okay, my Edge is okay for the most part, and the person who hit me is okay. But man, was it really scary. It took me a few days to really move on from the initial fear and to try to move forward. We’re working with the insurance companies now to repair the damage to my car, but I’ve ignored it for the first week because I wasn’t willing to open up another can of worms.

---

So that’s where I’ve been for the last month or two. I wish I could have been wonder woman and blogged consistently during all the chaos, but I’ll be honest: I just didn’t have it in me, and I didn’t want to have it in me. I needed to put all my energy into taking care of the things that were happening, and I needed to be as present as possible. Because life happens, you know? Life happens and it can be messy and chaotic, but I’ve learned that there is still beauty to be found in the middle of it all. And in order to find that beauty, I had to be there.

Where I’m Going

I’ll admit, there have been times where I feel like I’ve been away from my blog for too long and have made so many empty promises about coming back and being consistent that I’ve wondered if I should just give up altogether. I’m tired of letting myself down and letting my friends here down, even though you all constantly reassure me that you’ll be here when I come back.

But when I think about how much joy my blog and the HTC community has brought me, I realize that I’m being a ninny. There has been so much going on in my life since 2017 started and I’ve realized that it’s never too late to start fresh and to start anew. So, today being May 1st, is my fresh start. Hopefully, the busiest season of my life is over this year and I will actually have more time to get to HTC, but even if things continue to be crazy, I’m going to do my best to put my blog first.

So, I’m coming back to HTC. It may be a little slow going as I get back into the swing of things, but I’m coming back. I’ve got a ton of projects that I put on pause when we found out we were buying the house and I’m excited to delve back into them. I’ve got a ton of new products that I’ve been testing out and I can’t wait to share them with you. And I’ve got a lot of life-stuff to share with you, too. Because, at the end of the day, HTC is all about pursuing a vibrant life and finding encouragement on days when that just doesn’t seem possible.

I’ll talk to you soon,

xo,