And We’re Back

Whew. And now we’re back. Telfer’s still at work tonight and I just got the girls to bed and ate a bowl of the best squash soup ever. We did go to my grandma’s funeral last weekend in Baker City. We also managed to make our flights to California the next day. We spent a week in Escondido and Disneyland. So fun. And have I mentioned we have a five-year-old living in our house now? Yes, Cate is five and we took her to Disneyland to partake in the Princess-fest. She handles it well. She loves it all but it doesn’t seem to go too deep. My kind of girl. Cate, however, does not kid around when it comes to dessert. She can eat it. And then Jane’s too. And maybe mine as well. It’s impressivve.

Pine Needle Baskets & Other Doings

My sweet grandma died on Saturday. I had the privilege of being there with my mom and Elizabeth and cousins and aunt and uncle. Grandma was remarkably lucid on Saturday afternoon – she kept saying she was ready to go home – and God mercifully took her home at 7:30 pm. I have two of her pine needle baskets now on my mantel. I am going to frame the big one soon I think. 

I have had a little space this week in my schedule which has been good. I made this Williams-Sonoma Pumpkin Lasagna for dinner on Monday night. We waited to eat until the girls went to bed and watched an episode of Homeland (on Season 2) Oh my word. I finally used up all my zucchini and I also cut the cheese amount by half. 

Also, I may have ordered this bag:

My sweet grandma

My sweet grandma is in the hospital in Richland after breaking her hip and femur a few days ago. She had a surgery yesterday afternoon to alleviate her pain. We are all just so sad and she is in so much pain. Please pray for mercy.

I have been thinking about her all week. I want to grow old like she has – content and sweet and kind. No venomous words or constant guilt-tripping. What a wonderful grandma she has been.

I didn’t have a car my freshman year of college so my grandma would drive from Baker City to Nampa and then I would drive her home to Richland. Then I would drive her back to Nampa and then she would drive back to Baker City the next day. All so I didn’t have to take the greyhound bus. So at least twice she spent the night in my dorm room. One night she was all tucked into bed in her nightgown and we had a fire drill at midnight. Classic. We decided she could stay in bed and play hooky from the fire drill. 

Books Reading & An Anniversary

It’s been a rough go in the reading department lately. I have been in a protracted mood where I have started way too many books and feel a little frantic and nothing going in is meeting my need for peace and beautiful words. Except for Harry of course. Telfer and I are almost done with Azkaban per our Harry Potter Homework 2013 edition (in which we have a reading schedule to finish all of Harry Potter by Christmas).

The other bright spot is Delia Ephron’s collection of essays, Sister, Mother, Dog, Husband, etc. A couple of the essays deal with her sister Nora’s death and I love reading someone actively working out their feelings – grief, anger, frustration – through writing about it. It is so comforting and well, productive. And then I know how to articulate how I feel. I think I have little imagination in the end. Back to the Ephrons. One of the essays was excerpted in the New York Times but is so much denser and packs a bigger punch in the book. And then there’s Nora who lurks behind every corner of this collection. Haven’t read much of Nora Ephron? Start with her novel Heartburn and the New Yorker essay about her apartment in the Apthorp. I love.

In other news, I realized yesterday that this month marks *nine* years of blogging semi-regularly. I have been blogging since before it was cool and now, post-cool.
Here’s our very first post.