It's so hard to say good bye....

It's now been about 24 hours since Violet's been gone....and it's been a rough road. We had a great last week of fun things. We had many last things do to, friends to see, family members to see, and things to do. I think it went really well, all things considered. The one thing that made it hard, was that my mom got really really sick and actually ended up in the hospital on Thursday morning, so she didn't really get to hug her good bye.

However, after talking much with Gayle, my stepmom, who also did foster care years back, I realized that we needed to make this a "see ya later" rather than a "good-bye" so that's what we did. Violet liked this idea much better, the incoming family was totally fine with it, and I liked it too. We still had our moments. Violet cried every day and I caught myself tearful (read: emotional breakdowns) at multiple times during the week, usually when someone told me what a good job I did. Which is another blog post in it's entireity.

So, with that being said, Violet moved yesterday afternoon to Wichita, Kansas. I sent her with an address book with all her friends and families addresses and phone numbers, stamps, notecards, pens, stickers, and other fun writing stuff. I do hope she calls to tell me how she's doing. If I don't hear from her within the week, I will call her. However, I'm going to guess I'll hear from her within the week.

The plan is for us to go visit her within the next 2-3 months to see her, follow up and make sure she's doing well. Her worker will keep me informed and they told me they'd let her call as much as she'd like also. I feel very relieved with this also. For having someone in your life that long, it's like losing a piece of your heart. A very hard thing to do.

I decided to get away for the weekend and come to a peaceful place for me. I'm renting a cabin at Grand Lake. I've got wi-fi, tv, warm blankets, books, food, pop, and my dog....what else could a girl want...and the best part is that I'm in a place that I spent much time growing up as a child in the summers with my grandpa.

He built this resort (Lee's Resort) so I'm feeling at home, even though it's away. I wanted to get away, spend some time in peace and quiet to center myself before getting back to work and life as it was before Violet was in my life.

I think I'll be alright, it will be quite an adjustment, but I will be doing some fun new things too. I'm starting a new photography class and I'm sooooooo excited for that. I can't wait! Speaking of that, I changed my design of my blog and put a new header picture...that was from the class on Thursday night. It isn't a big deal, but I thought it was a cool picture...so I put it up there, because that is now the focus of my life. Well, one of many. Our instructor, Zane, was great. He was young, hip, cool, and seems to know a ton about photography. I'm excited to learn basic DSLR photography and how to shoot Manually. That's our goal.

We have homework assignment and Sarah and I already have a few shooting ideas for this week. We'll post pictures on our photo blog (link on upper right side) and I'll put some here too, I'm sure)! I'm going to try to capture some tomorrow. He said he expects us to get 50-100 per assignment! What a fun class! I'm so excited.

Well, I'm off to watch the OSU/Kansas basketball game...a little anxiously I suppose, but milk and oreo's will make it better. Here's a picture of what I'm looking at the moment...which satisfies our assignment too, by the way...

ISO 100/200
WB Daylight (I didn't even adjust to cloudy)
Center the meter to 0







Thanks for reading!

Oh, and for the record....Violet will be the first and the last foster kiddo I have. I've got some other stuff on the horizon.... ;)