Building The Love Shack

Husband and I were sitting and talking and like many, we’re saying… Where did summer go?

It feels like only weeks ago we were opening the cottage and now here we are sitting on the edge of Labor Day Weekend.

It doesn’t feel like we did much at the Love Shack this year. With that thought in mind, I looked back at the pictures we have taken this year. This year had a lot of touches up and finishing off projects that needed to be done.

We got to start the gardens and work on the back deck which is now the most used part of the cottage. And yes, I am finally writing at the cottage.

All those cottage warming gifts we received have now been hung, including the sign with our name on it giving us a name instead of the couple at number 8.

The main room is now a real room with walls, floor, paint and yes, a door on the front closet that got put in this weekend, making this a real home with no duct tape to look at.

The view in front of me is the framer’s field, the woods behind and directly in front of me is a hummingbird who has moved into birdhouse number two in the Tree of Life.

 

 

Life at the cottage has really become life at the cottage.

Now freeze time and go back to five years ago. This was the scariest weekend of our lives.  Five years ago on the Friday of this Long Weekend was when I got that awful call from the Doctor’s Office saying to me, “Don’t let Enrico out of your sight. This is a real emergency.”

This is the weekend that his heart rate so was so low that we started our journey into the life of medical emergency and needing the pace-maker.

Moving us forward five years, we came out with a better life and more people in it than we had before. We have seen the good in many people and have learned of our own strength.

And from it also came this Blog.

Sometimes when you sit down and write you wonder if you are writing for yourself, which really you are. Writers need to write. But you also wonder if anyone actually reads it.

This past week, the Blog has shown its self to me.

All along, I have seen the numbers of the Blog grow. I have answered the emails and I been approached many times from co-workes who have started reading the blog. These are encouraging, but this week something special happened to me.

Something special times two.

First, I heard from the family of the man who we lost at the lake. They had read my blog and though I told the story beautifully.  I confess, that made me cry.

And then a second one just came. That too made me cry but happy tears. We heard from the lovely couple Paul and June from Riley Lake who we rented their cabin. The ones who encouraged us to start our journey here at the Love Shack. They too had read this blog.

As a writer, you wonder sometimes, all this time you spend alone with a computer on your lap, does it ever reach anyone?  And then by some grace, you hear from someone who too has been through what you have, or your writing touches someone’s heart. Or the person you last expected to read your writing does.

These are the times that you know that your writing has hit home. Home in your own heart and home in someone else’s.

I remember when we got Enrico through the scariest time in his life, that I was grateful to all the friends and the medical teams at the Hamilton General Hospital.

It’s five years later. I am still grateful. Only my words of grateful increases each year. It now includes the followers of this blog.

As Paul said they were happy to be part of our story. We are grateful to all the people in our lives and also our blog followers, as you may not realize it, but you too are part of our story.

Fall starts in a couple of weeks. This year, we will get to spend more time at the Love Shack. Now that the walls are all in, the heat will stay in.  And now I will spend more time here doing what I had planned to do at the Love Shack, was write.

I look forward to watching the leaves change color and hearing the snap of the frost on what is still our green lawns.  I also look forward to the surprises this blog has to bring.

And in case I have never said it before, thank you for being part of our story.