Lizzy’s Latest – Happy New Year 2023!

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HAPPY NEW YEAR to my family, friends, followers, and visitors!  As usual, I’m fashionably late with posting.  Sigh!  I hope y’all had a great holiday!  Christmas here was a little smaller because my brother, Michael, and his family were not able to make it up from NC this year.  So, my annual Christmas pic with the kiddies was replaced with a snap of me with the rest of my family.

With my family: Mom, sister, Jeanette, and Dad. Thank you to Adrienne, my sister’s friend, for taking the pic.

With the smaller gathering, we had Christmas at my sister’s place in Alexandria, VA.  Though, we were a smaller group, our feast remained grand:  turkey, stuffing, roasted potatoes and carrots, and broccoli.  My brother and I usually split the wings, but in his absence, I got both wings.  Mmm!!! 

This turkey was an organic free range turkey.

After, we enjoyed Dad’s famous chocolate pudding pie.  Mont blanc, anyone?  😉

Dad’s enjoying his chocolate pudding pie with “mont blanc.”

It’s funny how life is.  For years, my family and I have been coasting along living our lives, planning vacations, and celebrating holidays.  All very routine and then unexpected illnesses happened that changed everything.  In 2022, life was very uncertain for me and my family.  There was no planning ahead because we were very much living day by day and thanking God for each new day. 

I’ll never understand why “bad” things happen to good people, but that’s just the way life is.  It’s how we react to these “bad” things that determine our outlook and how hopeful or bleak life looks as we navigate through adversity. 

I always go back to my life philosophy that can be summed up in 3 buckets:   

  •      Bucket A – I have 100% control of the outcome
  •      Bucket B – I have some control of the outcome depending on my influence on other variables involved
  •      Bucket C – I have no control of the outcome; so acknowledge and move on

You can read the genesis of my life philosophy in buckets here. 

For me and my family, faith, hope, love, tears, and lots of prayers got us through 2022.  As challenging as it was, we had many moments of levity to buoy our spirits.  And who better to cheer us up than my dad?  He always tells a good story, but this time he’s the story… 

Yes, Dad, my photographer, found himself in the hospital this year.  Initially, his symptoms were alarming and caused us panic.  We were already dealing with another health crisis and now my dad, head of our family, was having his own health crisis.  The first couple days were fraught with anxiety.  The uncertainty caused so much fear and bad thoughts.  Yet, Dad still took care of us sending us stories and jokes from his hospital bed; his way of letting us know all would be ok.  And it was.  Dad’s symptoms were from a bad gallbladder and once it was removed, he was quickly on the mend.

Back home, Dad told us more about his stay at the hospital.  One of the questions the doctor asked him was how much he drank a day.  When Dad answered about 3 beers typically, the doctor looked astonished.  Dad wondered, was that the wrong answer for this doctor?  The doctor looked at the nurse and told her to change Dad’s socks to yellow socks and put the bars up on his bed.  Apparently, Dad’s answer caused the doctor to label him as someone at high risk for falling!  And who are some of these people most at risk for falling?

Well, that became clear a short time later.  During his stay, Dad had a bevy of nurses taking care of him.  Apparently, he was the rockstar on his floor as they were all smitten with Dad!  Several would come in and talk to him during their breaks.  Others would pop in to say hi and then giggle as they left. 

Of course, Dad was loving all the attention until he overheard a quick chat between the day nurse and the incoming night nurse.  It was all pleasant conversation until the last sentence uttered by the day nurse:

“Greg is a really nice guy, but he’s an alcoholic.”

HAHAHA!!!  🙂 And how was your 2022? 

On behalf of Lizzy’s Latest, I wish all of you a blessed and healthy 2023!  May this new year be filled with love and happiness!  😊  Lizzy’s Latest is featuring the Steve Madden Alessi pumps.  They are translucent and gorgeous with an approximately 4-inch heel.

I chose this photo shoot for the new year post because of the illusion of being in the clouds.  The sky’s the limit for all your 2023 endeavors!

Style with a Smile!

XoXo,

Lizzy

This was a “concept” shot. We were playing with the camera controls…blurring the background with the heel in focus.