Karwoski Life

Just a quickie update…tomorrow I’m leaving town for a girls get away trip with some friends! We’re heading out to Vegas for 3 days of fun, sun, and relaxation. I can hardly wait!! Matt is bachin’ it with his dad again while I’m gone. I’m sure they’ll have fun hanging out and talking etc. The forecast for Des Moines looks cool and rainy…but Vegas is sunny and hot! YAHOO! This vacation couldn’t have come at a better time. Things have been so stressful lately, and I really need this time away to relax and re-energize. Juggling all my responsibilities can get pretty overwhelming sometimes, and I’m ready to just focus on fun and nothing else for a while! We’ve also made some decisions about Matt’s continued therapy. Over the past week or so, we’ve talked a lot about things. How far we’ve come, where we’re heading, what we both want out of therapy, and out of life. We talked to his physical therapist here in Des Moines about our thoughts too, and came to a mutual decision to cut back his the...

I broke down a little tonight, while fixing supper. It had been a little while, so I guess I was due. I was just feeling frustrated and overwhelmed with things. Things have slowed down with our house plans…slowed way down. The builder told us that things would take time to get going, that the planning phase can be lengthy, but I don’t really think I knew it would be like this. It seems to take 2 weeks to even get a chance to talk to him. Originally we had thought we’d be looking at lots with him this week, but his schedule has booked up and now it looks like next week is the earliest we can meet up. I hate to complain…I don’t want to seem ungrateful…but it is so hard to continue to be patient. I’m not sure he, or anyone for that matter, truly understands how hard it is to keep up this pace. I find myself running around nearly all the time. I have very little breathing room between work, Matt’s therapy schedule, his needs, and all my many responsibilities at home. The dogs, the housewor...

Today I am bummed…depressed…distraught. This stupid weather we’ve been having here in Iowa is just disgusting!!! We had days where the weather was in the 70’s, and now we’re lucky if we hit 40…and today it is actually snowing. SNOWING! Disgusting. Now, I realize that it would be highly unusual for it to be in the 70’s this early in the spring…but come on, 30’s!?!! Bring on the 50’s for crying out loud!! And the SUNSHINE!!! All my pour little flowers are wilting…all my early spring excitement has been replaced with frustration and worry that all my plants are going to look like crud. Grumble, grumble. Yesterday I had the highly enjoyable task of running errands in the pouring rain. What was supposed to be a somewhat momentous, emotional errand turned into one of aggravation. Here’s the deal; all this time we’ve had temporary handicapped parking stickers for the cars. They expire after 6 months, and we’d renew them. Well, this time we decided to bite the bullet and get the permanent ones...

Time is moving by quickly, and while I wish I had more to update everyone on…things are pretty much status quo. We have been waiting to meet with our builder to discuss where we are at with things and what our next steps will be. Unfortunately, it is a slow process and we are trying our best to be patient. We just want things to keep moving forward, but it’s hard to wait. Especially for me…I am NOT the most patient person. So, nothing new to report there. This past weekend we had some friends and family over to help get our yard cleaned up. We woke up to a rainy Saturday morning, so we didn’t know for sure how much we’d get done, but thankfully the rain stopped and we were able to rake the whole yard and get it spruced up for spring. It helps me to know that we can start the season off cleaned up; making it much easier to maintain from here on out! I will be happy when we don’t have quite so much yard to tend! Our friends and family who helped did a great job, and we are SO th...

I just wanted to post some pictures of Matt working at Timbercreek: Here you can see his therapist, Kim, pushing Matt up the ramp. The other man is James, a local farmer who volunteers there, helping walk beside the horses. Once he is at the top of the ramp, he holds on to the railing as Kim helps him turn around: Next there is a person, this day it was Meg, who brings the horse up behind Matt. He then sits down on the horse with James behind him and Kim next to him: He then swings a leg over and he's officially on: They spend the rest of the time walking around the arena, between and around the barrels: Friday's visit went really well again. Matt rode for about 35 minutes, then he and Kim worked on standing balance in their gym. We talked to her about adding another day out there and they are going to look at the schedule and see what we can do. Then Matt will have 2 days of therapy here in Des Moines, and 2 days out at Timebercreek. Should be good! I will write more la...

Well, another week has come and gone, and (I think) spring is finally in the air. Though we had 2 inches of snow yesterday…it quickly melted away in the warm afternoon sunshine. Today was another warm spring day, with sunshine and temperatures in the mid 40’s. A lot of my bulbs are starting to peek through the mulch, giving me a little lift and excitement in anticipation of the many blooms to come. (Matt enjoys my excitement, thoroughly…rolling his eyes and squealing in mock joy along with me.) Teasing aside, I know he is looking forward to the many rewards of the pending spring and summer months as much as I am. Tuesday we had record temperatures and spent the afternoon working out in the garage and enjoying the sunshine together. Matt got into the Trans Am and pulled it out into the driveway so we could clean out some stuff from the storage area up above it. We went through things and filled the garbage can with junk. Fun, fun! I’m sure it was just the first of many garage c...

Just a quickie…I was waiting to post about the hippotherapy visit because our initial visit was somewhat anti-climactic. Matt didn’t get to ride that day…and he won’t get to ride today either. The first visit we spent mostly just talking to the therapist, getting her up to speed on Matt and his rehab journey so far. She was very, very easy to talk to and Matt opened right up to her. I could see right away that he was at ease and felt comfortable with her…which was GREAT to see! She took her time asking HIM about things and getting to know him better. She did some preliminary testing of his strengths and weaknesses and gave us a tour of the place. Matt’s therapy there is going to be two-pronged. He is going to spend part of the time riding and part of the time working in their wave pool. They have a really nice pool where he can work on balance and walking with even more resistance than in a traditional pool. They can turn on jets and create a current, something he hasn’t ever...