Easter weekend

Finished reading Already Home by Susan Mallery last night.  Highly recommend for a good read.  I discovered Susan's books when I started reading the Fool's Gold series.  Family, self doubt, insecurity, love, redemption, it has all of those and a good group of characters.

The world goes on

It's been a tough week, but, holding my little grandbaby in my arms this afternoon really picked up my spirits.  Something about the warm, wiggly body in my arms and the big toothless grin just makes me feel better.  Well worth the two hour round trip.  Love that little girl!
There is something about a child that makes you believe the world will go on!

Death, funerals, and really living your life

This has been a hard, exhausting week.  One of my son-in-laws lost his mother, and I lost a friend.  We weren't BFF, but, we were nice to each other, shared occasional family meals and valued each other's adult child.  Her son is also my son.  My daughter was also her daughter.  So, this week, we all lost a family member.  As I wept at her funeral, it wasn't just that she had died so quickly following a cancer diagnosis.  I wept as we remembered a life well lived.  I wept realizing how much she had treasured her children and her grandchildren.  I wept as her husband of over 30 years gave the moving eulogy of his history with her.  There was admiration, love and respect in his words.  There was the memory of laughter.  There was the pride in a a wife who did so much and meant so much to so many people.  The viewing had been crowded.  The church, on a workday was full.  The funeral procession was long.  In sixty short years, this strong willed (and very stubborn) woman had left her mark.  She had survived so many things, had many losses and disappointments.  But, she had still lived her life with dignity, love and generosity.  People remembered her cooking and hospitality.  Everyone remembered her warmth.
I remembered her worry, when our two (now grown and married) teenage children had been becoming "too serious" at 19.   It was an unbelievably uncomfortable telephone conversation, as she worried out loud to me about where their relationship was "going" (yes, she meant sex).   How she had supported their love as it had grown and matured.  How joyful she was at the wedding reception when they married, after they had both finished college, found their niches in life and known that they were ready to be together forever.

I think, today, sad as we all are,  now that the funeral is over, and somehow the sun has come out, that joy in living and loving must be remembered. 
I will try to be there for him, my friend.  Not the mother you were for him, I know.  But, I will encourage and support and love him, since you have moved to another place, and can't be here to do it.  I will be his mother as much as I can and he will be my son, in my heart.
Rest in peace, for the groundwork, the foundation you have left behind, from a well lived life, will support us all as we learn how much we will all miss you.

Back from babysitting

Back yesterday from watching my granddaughter, while her other gram was on a trip.  I give her other grandmother alot of credit - Quinn's fun, but she keeps you busy.
The playroom I'm working on is for her.
She is teething right now, but except for the brief fussiness she's pretty pleasant about the whole thing!
When she looks at me, I feel the most intense love.  Who would have thought being her grammy would be so great!

Finishing Projects

Went to see my gorgeous granddaughter this weekend, now that we're no longer all germy (husband has now recovered, too).
An interesting thing has happened on the way to organizing the playroom for the munchkin aka granddaughter.  I am FINISHING THINGS.  I have often thought I could start a thousand projects, but, lose interest before completed.  Something about this mission is organizing my ways, too.  I finished several pillows I had been working on for months, for her window seat and floor in her nursery.  The smaller pillows involved machine and hand sewing, so they had been languishing in my to-do basket (it's a really BIG basket) for months.  The first one was finished before she was born on December 3rd, and I started off fine, but, now they are actually in her nursery.  I have another fleece pillow for a floor pillow started, but, seems more likely I'll finish it.  I lined up the smaller ones on the window seat, put the big one on the floor, and got busy playing with her on her play mat, took pictures of her (of course!) and totally forgot to photograph the pillows.
I also have resumed work on her cross stitch quilt (did I mention I start alot of stuff!!!??).

So, here's a picture of the mighty and beautiful Quinn.  The pictures of the pillows can wait until she is also with them!

I'm still working on it

So after the flu, the bronchitis that was awful, etc. etc.  I'm much better, and trying to attack my mission one babystep at a time.  Today I reclaimed the bookshelves at the end of the playroom to be.  Still too much stuff, but, books sorted by author are now on some of the shelves, with books in boxes, already sorted by author, waiting to join them. The lower books are doll and craft books that wanted to stay.  Also some jars of buttons (I LOVE buttons) are there, for now.

I hate being sick!!

Well, I finally got the  bug that's been going around at work - nasty stomach bug.  I sat in bed and sorted through paper files yesterday, so I felt like I got something accomplished.

I hate being sick!!!