~Count Your Blessings~

Today I am very grateful.

I'm grateful that I am able to go and spend some quality time with my grandmother. One might notice a theme to the last handful of posts, family family family. We've had some hard losses this year and while I'm sad that it had to be under these circumstances I would have to say that we've been putting some extra special effort into being close to our loved ones.

My grandmother took a nasty spill yesterday and I am blessed to have a job where I am given paid vacation days and am able to afford a ticket so I am going to take a handful of days off and go and be with her while she is on the mend. When I called to tell her I was coming I could hear pure joy in her voice, she perked up big time, it was adorable. I intend on having her help me learn how to make bread, make a pie crust, be a better embroiderer (she's the one who taught me in the first place!) and hopefully how to operate a sewing machine. We'll see though, she's not known for her patience but it might be that she's mellowed out a bit more these days...I'm not getting my hopes up...we'll just see what happens. Another thing I have to make sure we work on is a memory box that I bought her a little over a year ago. Hallmark put out these sets called Memory Boxes, I believe they were designed by Marcia Cross (of Desperate Housewives) and they were pretty cool. They are hard to find now, Hallmark quit carrying them for some reason but now and again you can find them on Ebay. They have a book with questions and a mini tape recorder, a little album and so forth. I really want her to give me as much memories of her & my late grandfather as she can.

It is unfortunate that it takes getting older sometimes to appreciate our elders and the lives they have lived. I wish I had asked more questions as a child, been able to learn more things from her. I wish I knew something of my parent's grandparents but they were gone long before I was a glimmer in the gloaming. I want my baby to know their great grandparents but it does not seem that we will be granted that opportunity. I'll collect as much info as I can before we bid them farewell.

Back at it!

Wow.

So, it's practically been forever since I last posted. What can I say? The holidays are brutally busy. Especially this year as I had my family coming to town to stay and wasn't able to get prepared as soon as I would have liked due to another death in the family and a cold. It's been quite a one-two punch for my husband this year having just lost his mother in Sept. and now losing his first grandparent on Dec. 23rd. And of course we all know that when something like that happens to your spouse it happens to you too. We must always support our other half, bolster them and shoulder the weight of daily life until they are able to rejoin the activities. All in all he & his family are doing okay, Christmas was hard but we knew it would be.

Christmas nearly didn't happen for me as my parents were driving and would have to go thru what was predicted to be one of the most brutal storms in many many years. They called to say they had heard the highways were going to be closed and they weren't going to make it. I poured myself a cocktail, settled into a movie and pouted.
That night when I went to sleep I expected to awaken to a winter wonderland, instead the sky was clear and the sun was shinning. My phone was also ringing....they were on the road!! Turns out the storm dissipated and they were able to get going anyway! They made it in good time and were all safe & sound on Christmas day. We celebrated the next day so everyone would be able to relax and be ready for it instead of just rushing thru to be able to celebrate it on Christmas day exact.

This wasn't the relaxing vacation I had been looking forward to ( I ended up having to work a few extra days) but it was nice and it's always great to see family even when that includes a surly brother who doesn't seem to enjoy my company. Oh well.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday and were surrounded by love and comfort~

I'm getting some plans together to start some intensive work surrounding meditation and manifestation so there will be details soon!