December 1, 2006: The Day my Grandma died

This is copied & pasted from the rambling I wrote back in November, about a month before the anniversary of my Grandma's death. In case the iBook croaks, I want to have this somewhere else.

The iBook that this is written on once belonged to my Grandma, so you can imagine that nearly six years after her death, it’s a rather old laptop. It was originally given to my dad, who had zero interest in it. I ended up with it. The case and the laptop still smell like Grandma’s house. I know this, but for some reason today when I opened up the machine and the smell hit me I started crying.

I think part of it is that I realize my own daughter will be a year old in a week, and that she’ll never know the awesome woman that was my Grandma. Part of it is that the Holidays always make me miss the family I used to have.

I have pictures, and stories, but somehow I wish I had more to share with Addy. To let her know just how great of a woman she’s named after. I mean, Emoline has popped up as a name throughout our family for generations, but the most recent before my own lovely daughter was my Grandma.

December First will mark six years since my Grandma died. I’m pretty sure that day is burned into my memory for eternity. I was sitting in my living room in my very first apartment at 2353 1/2 N. High Street, just north of the OSU campus. I was waiting for my mom to show up, as we were heading down to the hospital to visit Grandma. She’d had a nasty stroke but had started to recover. I remember answering the door for mom, and telling her I still had to get my shoes on because I’d gotten sucked into something on TV.  She sat down on the futon that was our couch, and told me we weren’t going to the hospital because Grandma had died that morning. She’d gotten the phone call shortly before heading up to get me.

She had been recovering from the strokes she’d had. One nasty and a couple of mini strokes. She was mentally there if not there fully physically. From my uinderstanding, she had several massive strokes one after the other that finally took her out. I’m not gonna lie, I hope I have half of her resiliency. Seriously, it took MULTIPLE MASSIVE STROKES to take that little Irishwoman out.

My mommy held me as I cried my eyes out, and she barely shed a tear. Her own mommy had just died, yet she paused her mourning to comfort me. I guess that’s what you do as a mommy, you take care of your kids first and yourself later. She stayed with me until she absolutely had to leave to get back to work. I went upstairs and curled up in my bed, crying. I set an alarm for when I had to get up and get myself put together for work as I worked the short shift at FYE that evening. I left my bed to pee, to grab a snack and drink, and to feed my gecko, Henry. Other than that I didn’t leave that bed until my alarm went off and I had to get myself presentable and head off to work.

Apparently the fact that I was going in to work after a major trauma was too much for the powers that be. Heading down I-71, a tire on my trusty Dodge Intrepid blew. Yup, tire blowout on the highway. It gets better. My jack broke. Mom came to rescue me, and her jack broke. Stupid Intrepid. Fortunately an ODOT first responder found me, and he had a heavy duty floor jack so we were able to get my spare put on the car. It gets better still. As if my Grandma dying and my tire blowing out wasn’t enough to ruin my day, my spare was flat. At this point, fortunately, I’d already called work crying and trying to explain that I would be late. Lucky for me I had a great boss and she told me to just take the night off, get myself and my car together, and to call if I wouldn’t be in for my shift the next day.

I ended up in my mom’s car, leaving mine on the side of the highway, and going to my parents’ house. Luckily, I drove my own car home that evening after my dad rescued it and fixed my flat tire. 

Overdue Babbling

This particular update is being brought to you from a very old, very outdated Apple iBook. The teeny little 12" one at that.

You see, several years ago, my technologically capable Grandma decided she wanted a laptop and this is what she bought. she loved it, she used it all the time to play games online, to email family, or to just browse the web. When my Grandma died in 2006, the little iBook started out with my dad but ultimately came to me. It sat in a closet for several years, and then my tried and true HP was stolen from my apartment on campus. Fortunately I had a desktop by then so all that was lost was pictures. Lots of great pictures, yes, but it could've been worse. The iBook came out briefly, but ultimately ended up back in the closet.

Anyhow, when I had Addy in 2011 (see, I can't say "last year" anymore), I dug out the iBook to take to the hospital with me. It's a good thing I did considering I had an unplanned c-section and therefore was in the hospital for the better part of a week. This little iBook saved my sanity. There's nothing quite like being stuck in the hospital recovering from major surgery and being restricted in your movement thanks to tons of IVs. After we got home, the iBook went back into storage. We didn't have wifi hooked up at the house until recently.

Our dear friend Jimmy bought us a wireless router for the house as a Christmas present so I could cut down my data usage on my phone and indulge my kindle habit without having to tether myself to the desktop.

Of course, I broke out the little iBook. And that is when it hit me. This iBook has been in and out of storage for the last six years, and yet it still smells like my Grandma's house. Let that sink in for a bit.

Perspective: A closet at my parents' house, a closet at my campus apartment, a closet at my first place with Nate, several hotel rooms, a hospital, and my closet at my current home. And it still smells like Grandma's house.

I, of course, immediately started sobbing. Hardcore ugly crying to be more precise. I think part of the punch was that I pulled it out just before the 6 year anniversary of my Grandma's death.

As a result, I wrote out a rather long journal entry just remembering her. I'm debating sharing it.

If I decide to share it, it'll pop up within the next few days.

365 Project

I've seen a lot of 365 project ideas running around the internet. I've always thought they were pretty fun and creative, but I lack creativity, photography skills, and follow-through.

I've decided "Screw it, I'm going for it!" the other day. So, I'm going to take at least 1 photo a day of something involving our lives. I'm not doing any fancy theme. Honestly, I just want to capture some of the moments in our lives. I've started and have actually taken pictures for the whole 2 days of 2013 so far! Better than most other projects.

I may or may not blog them all, but we'll see what happens. Unfortunately the ancient iBook is a bit too old to pull things from my camera, but that doesn't make it impossible to blog from this computer, just inconvenient for spur-of-the-moment thoughts.

So there you have it. I'm attempting a 365 project. If this time next year I've managed to actually have the pictures I want/need to take, then hot damn!!

My Crafting Addiction

I love to craft, even though I'm really not that good at it. I've found, however, that having a 1 year old to intrude upon everything I do makes crafting difficult.

Fortunately, I found something I can easily put down and hide from her as the need arises: Crochet.

My mom started teaching me to crochet many, many years ago. I walked away from it and forgot about it, only randomly picking it back up to get busy again with other things. I've recently picked it back up again and have managed to actually finish a few projects!

So far, I've made Addy a hat and a matching scarf, and I made an adult hat for my friend Jimmy complete with a puff ball on top. Now I'm working on learning how to make slippers/socks and snowflakes.

I've decided that I really like this new hobby, and since my projects are starting to look like what they're supposed to be, I'm going to start getting adventurous with it. Who knows, I might get good enough to make hats & mittens to donate to charities to help keep people warm. Hey, a girl can dream, right?

My Weird Addiction

I'm addicted to Degrassi. I admit it. From Degrassi Junior High all the way to the currently running Degrassi: The Next Generation. It's ridiculous, I know, but it's my guilty pleasure in the world of melodrama.

A few years ago, the tagline for D:NG was "Degrassi. It goes there." Since I've been sick with a sick kid, I've been watching a lot of the whole saga recently, and I've noticed a few random patterns than any hardcore nutjob like me would know, but that I feel like putting out there. So, for your amusement, my list of completely random Degrassi trivia! (And some opinions).

In all of Degrassi, there has only been one suicide. 

Claude Tanner committed suicide in the Degrassi High bathroom back in the episode "Showtime." Snake found him.

There have been 2 abortions, 2 babies kept, and 2 put up for adoption. 

 We all know that Christine "Spike" Nelson was the first Degrassi pregnancy, and she kept Emma, after all, despite a slight fudging of the timeline, Emma is a big part of Degrassi: The Next Generation. The second Degrassi pregnancy was Erica Farrell, also on the original series. The difference here is that Erica had an abortion. Also, if you want to truly appreciate modern pregnancy tests, check out the complicated contraption Erica has to use (and wait 3 hours) to find out she's knocked up. Degrassi pregnancy number 3 is also the 2nd abortion: that of everyone's favorite school slut (hehe) Manny Santos. An impulsive night with someone else's boyfriend led little Miss Santos to the clinic. Pregnancy 4: the first adoption. Liberty Van Zant, the last girl you'd expect to wind up pregnant, does. After much drama, her son is adopted and ultimately moves to Seattle. Pregnancy number 5, only sorta counts as we didn't know about it until after the fact. Lakehurst transfer Mia Jones has a beautiful little girl named Isabella that allowed the show to prove just how tricky teen motherhood can be, as with Spike a generation before. Pregnancy #6 is the one that pisses me off, and I blame the fact that I watched those episodes when I was pregnant/had a newborn of my own. Jenna Middleton, of the latest group of Degrassi kids, gets pregnant, denies it until she's nearly 6 months along, has the baby, and then gives him up several months later because she just couldn't hack it. I get it, she did what was best for the baby, but hormonal, sleep-deprived, newborn having me was not amused. I still kinda hate Jenna.

There has been exactly one accidental death.

The most infamous Degrassi death is the only accidental one: that of school shooter-slash-everyone's favorite punching bag: Rick Murray. A struggle for the gun left Sean convinced he'd pissed himself. Turns out Rick's gun discharged into Rick's gut.

There has only been one major car accident. 
Sure, JT wrecked the bus stop when Liberty said she was pregnant, and Sean hit that guy during a street race. Heck, even most recently Ali fell asleep at the wheel and hit a parked car. None of those come close to the supremely heart-stopping moment that defined the end of the Degrassi High series. Drunk off his ass, sweet guy turned screw up Wheels went for a drive. OK, so he and Lucy were on a snack run for the party at the lake house, but still, he was DRINKING AND DRIVING. Sure enough, they wreck. Wheels, naturally, gets only a scratch. Lucy was paralyzed and *drum roll* the little kid in the other car DIED. Yes, a main Degrassi character directly caused the death of someone. Wheels served 10 years in prison for that one, and made one appearance on D:NG when Snake had cancer.

**EDIT: It can be argued that the car accident that killed Wheels' parents is a major accident, but as we never see it and had relatively little knowledge of them before the accident happened, I'm not counting it.

There has only been one murder.Next Generation fans were beyond pissed over the craptacular way the writers decided to bring drama into season 6. They killed JT Yorke, resident comedian, by stabbing him in the back. Seriously, were the classes of 06 & 07 all just doomed?



2 Characters have done jail time.


Derek "Wheels" Wheeler and Sean Cameron. Oddly enough, both for hitting people with cars. Wheels killed a kid in a drunk driving accident and served 10 years. Sean was run off the road during a street race and hit a jogger, who as far as we all know survived. Sean served several months then received two years of probation.

Toby Isaacs is the most tragic character ever.

This one is Gospel Truth in my fandom. Think about it. He has a self-absorbed "career woman" type mother who is rarely around (although he does have a pretty cool step-mom), and, get this, his best friend is killed TWICE. First, Toby had become close to school outcast Rick Murray. If you've been following this rant, you know Rick was the school shooter responsible for Jimmy Brooks being in a wheelchair. Rick died. Fast forward a couple of years and what happens? His best friend since elementary school summer camps, JT Yorke, gets stabbed in the back and killed. WTF, Degrassi? Can't you cut a cute nerd some slack? I like to think Toby came into his own in college and is starting his own engineering firm.

Just an opinion here: I can't take Drake, the rapper, seriously.
I'm sure Aubrey Graham (AKA rapper Drake) feared this just a little bit when launching his music career. I can't take him seriously as a rapper. Every time I hear him, I think of this: (apologize for the quality, it's all I could find!)

5 Months

This past Sunday marked Addy being 5 months old. I can't help but wonder where the heck the time is going!

Quite a few of my mommy friends have been talking about sleep training. I just have to say I have been blessed with a kid who sleeps through the night and has since VERY early on; she may go on nap strikes which drive me insane, but she will still sleep at night. I count my blessings on that one.

At 4 months I got clearance to start her on Vitamin D enhanced rice cereal and then to slowly add in stage 1 fruits and veggies. Well, I finally got around to starting veggies. Sweet potatoes were well received, but the kid went ape over peas. Yes, peas. I have no idea where this child came from considering Nate absolutely hates peas, as I only tolerate them when mixed in with other things.

As most people know, I'm what is known as an "exclusive pumper." It means Addy gets breastmilk from a bottle due to complications with getting it straight from the source. It's very discouraging to be attached to a frigging pump so often, so I've been setting myself little goals. At first I said 8 weeks, then 3 months, then 6 months. So far, I've made it 5. She's taking to foods extremely well, so if I make it to six, I think I'll go for 9. My ultimate goal it to make it one year, wean myself from the pump, use up the freezer stash, and start transitioning her to cow's milk. So far she shows no intolerance, so it should be very reasonable.

I was getting nervous since at almost four months old she was showing no signs of rolling over. I should know better than to doubt her. Out of the blue she started rolling from back to front, and then within a week was rolling front to back. Now she rolls across the living room floor to get things she wants.

Our most recent skill has been sitting up. She can't push herself up from the floor yet (but oh how she tries!) but if I sit her down, she will stay there playing with toys and reaching for them. According to the literature, she's actually on the early end of this skill, so I'm thrilled. My 5 month old is ahead of the curve :-D

Still no teeth, although the little miss is obviously teething. Boo to cranky baby with nothing to show for it yet. I can see little white spots where those two bottom teeth will ultimately be, so it's just a matter of time. It could be days or still a couple of months.

Now, because I can, here are a couple of pictures of my punk:

Walk MS!

Just a reminder- help me raise money to fight MS!