Karwoski Life

It’s no secret, Matt and I love college football. Already we are gearing up for our Football Saturday tradition, which starts in just a few weeks! We’re starting to make plans to ensure we don’t have any plans, so our Saturdays will be free for our all day/all night football viewing pleasure. It is simply our favorite time of year! The past few years, we've tried to get tickets to both an IA and an ISU game. We've missed a few games here and there, for various reasons, but this year we were all set to get tickets for both again. A few weeks ago I went online and ordered tickets for an IA game and within a few days they arrived in the mail. Our calendar is marked and we are excited for the upcoming trip to Kinnick Stadium…though I truly loath the long drive home, I am preparing to plan ahead a mini-tailgate back at the car after the game. Hopefully avoiding some of the post-game traffic horror that infuriated me last year. Today I went online to see about tickets to a...

Last week marked a couple major milestones in our life – our 15 th wedding anniversary, and our first trip to see REAL mountains (Hawaii & Ireland only have ‘hills’ in comparison). We had booked the trip months and months ago – when curled up on the couch this winter contemplating where to go for our summer vacation. Naturally, our thoughts always turn to Minnesota – and time spent around the lake. But our last trip reinforced the fact that we just NEED to have better accessibility to really enjoy vacation. So we started thinking about other spots and eventually landed on a resort just outside of Estes Park, CO – only minutes from Rocky Mountain National Park. They had an accessible unit which looked like it would meet our needs and so we took a chance and booked it! And I’m SO glad we did!! We split the drive up on the way out (which we would definitely do again, if we go back) and spent an afternoon/evening in Kearney, NE. We wandered around town a bit, checked out a super hila...

Several years ago an old friend of mine from school got together with some other friends and put together an adult theme pr om – for charity. I had seen her pictures and Facebook posts about it before and last year’s Super Hero theme was enough to tempt me and my friend Emily to don crazy ‘Super Emily’ costumes and boogie the night away with a couple hundred ‘super’ strangers. It was a blast – we were hooked and knew that come 2013, we’d definitely have to get our husbands to join us for an out-of-the-ordinary (cuz we hate to do things without a theme) date night. When the prom rolled around this year, it also coincided with my sister’s 40th birthday. A plan begin to formulate in my little brain…how fun would it be to celebrate Hope’s birthday at the PROM!?! Now, normally Hope is not a big fan of dressing up and making a fool of herself. (You should have seen the confused look on her face when Emily and I showed up at Hickory Park in our Super Emily costumes last year… I digress) But...

I feel as though I've been in limbo for several months. I’m in limbo about what to say or not say on this blog…and workout limbo for sure - since the pregnancy and miscarriage.  I’m cautious about how much to share – and keeping a lot to myself these days…which is hard. So here I am – after several weeks – trying to find a balance. Let’s just start off by saying; my body is not where it was a year ago when we started this second round of really trying to get pregnant. (And yes – it’s been about a year.) I was working hard with a trainer, running regularly and staying pretty tight with my food journal. The pregnancy and miscarriage really threw me for a loop though. In the beginning, I was sure that I’d keep up with the trainer throughout my pregnancy – be one of those healthy moms I've seen working out right up to the very end. But losing the baby so early – made me pause. Did I push too hard? Was I working too much? Obviously I knew very early on that I was...

So it’s the start of a new year (ish), and that always prompts a little spring cleaning around the office. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting my little corner of cubicle world – you know that I have very little blank space on my gray walls. I mean, who wants to look at sad, drab, gray walls all day?? When not busy working, of course. I prefer to look up and see things that make me smile; happy mementos of fun times, pictures my favorite kids have made me, photos from awesome places I’ve been, certificates of accomplishment (both professional and personal) which inspire me, all sorts of things which remind me of the countless blessings in my life. For a long time – seven years, to be exact – I had this picture of Matt and me from vacation 2005. It was his 30th birthday and he had caught that really awesome walleye, while I had caught a couple small perch. I’ve posted this picture before – it’s definitely a favorite…special in so many ways. I used to look at the picture long...

Sometimes just when I think I know Matt, he does something that totally takes me by surprise…in a good way. I debated whether or not I wanted to write about his latest little surprise,  but something like this…well, I couldn’t let it pass by without comment. Matt’s Uncle Denny is sick. He’s battling a recurrence of cancer that has really taken its toll on him physically and emotionally. Matt and I are getting regular updates on his condition through family e-mails and phone calls – and he’s really been on our minds and hearts the past few weeks. Earlier this week we got out a card to send to Denny – to let him know we were thinking of him and Matt took a few minutes to sign the card. Typically Matt writes very little…ever. Of course he has to use his left hand, which is awkward and unnatural and even then…the tremor really kicks in on the right side when he’s concentrating so hard. The result is usually shaky and he thinks it looks bad – so he typically keeps his writing to h...

I had a miscarriage. I’ve debated for weeks whether or not to acknowledge it publicly. It’s such a personal thing…and this is such a public medium. But a few months have gone by and I’m no closer to feeling ok about it and truly nothing else on my mind really compares, so here I am, letting the world in on my secret. Over the past few weeks I’ve found very little comfort in the fact that only a small handful of people know about the miscarriage. It became nearly unbearable this week, during all our wonderful family Christmas celebrations. Being surrounded by so many people who love me and support me and have no idea how my heart has been broken – it’s a lonely place to be. Not that I would want them all to bombard me with pity or questions or sad looks in their eyes – I realize I can’t have it both ways. But a little acknowledgement goes a long way and I simply can’t ignore or deny the fact that something major happened in my life and impacted me, impacts me still.   It was a ...