Ode to my grandma

I've been wanting to blog about my grandma for a while now. She is my idol, just such a big part of my life! For the past couple of years I have had the blessing of spending time with her nearly every week or so and taking her to do her errends. Sometimes I am there only a few hours and sometimes I was able to stay the night and spend even more time. The time I have spent has been more than wonderful and fufilling for me.

The things that are so impressive about my grandma are...

1. Her spunk! She is sharp and witty and I love to laugh with her!

2. Her stamina. She is 93 years old now and has only slowed down for breif moments, and then quickly picked up the pace afterward. Tonight she told me tomorrow she had so much to do, clean her toilets, do her laundry, mop the kitchen floor and still there was more. What 93 year old talks like that, and then actually does it???

3. Her love. My grandma loves so well. I never come or go without feeling like I am the light of her life! Her sweet kisses on my neck, her wispers in my ear, and her unending compliments. But I'm not the only one, I think she makes everyone feel this way. She has love to go around to everyone!

4. Her stregnth. Not always the physical stregnth that I have spoken of, but also the mental stregnth. Since my grandpa died there are times that she has broken down and gotten tears in her eyes, but that is unusual for her. She is STRONG! I don't know that it's always good to hold things inside, but for her it is her way. She has held the weight of the world on her shoulders and you would never know it.

5. Her testimony. My grandma and my grandpa too have always been an example to me of testimony. Without question she follows the counsel of the leaders of the church and the commandments. It is such a huge part of who she is.

6. Her service. Since I can remember my grandma and grandpa always took care of "old people". Even if the old people were younger than they were. They were and are constantly serving others. Now that my grandma is alone and doesn't get around, she is still finding ways to serve. If it is buying a bit of candy for her friends, or stopping to tell a stranger how cute their child is or helping someone on the street with some little thing, she is always serving. She has the spirit of service in her blood!

7. Her friendship. If you ask her friends, they could tell you she is a true friend. Because of the things I have mentioned above, but also because she loves her friends. Their not just "old people" to her, or neighbors, but true friends because she is a true friend.

This list is short and if it weren't late at night I bet I could come up with an endless list. She is a wonderful human and a wonderful friend and a wonderful grandma.

Once again, I am so blessed to have been able to spend this time with her these past years. Now, she is going to Arizona to be with her children and spend some time with them. I am so torn about it. I know she loves her children more than anything and she wants to make them happy. So I know this is what she wants to do, but I also know it is very hard for her. I worry about her and I want her to find peace and happiness where she is. I hope this is the case. I know Stephanie and Staci and the rest of the family will love to be able to see her more and be with her now so that is a good thing, I will just miss her SO much.

I can't wait for a few months to pass so she can come home and we can resume our days together. In the mean time I have already planned a couple of trips to Mesa for the holidays and I will be able to enjoy her there!

Here's some pictures from one of our days together a few months ago.

A sweet hello. Waving at a waitress that she likes.


I love those hands!


Stairway to Heaven! Or grandma's house, I guess it's how you look at it!


Just taking care of grandpa as well as she can. Pulling weeds and adding flowers at the cemetary.


Those eyes...

It's a terrible day

Brodric: “I’m gonna run away. My life is terrible…”
Mom: “I’ll miss you, where are you going to sleep tonight?”
Silence… Bricky: “I’m gonna just run away.”

I guess gymnastics just wasn’t fun enough for him… Can you believe there are rules at gymnastics too? Imagine that, you can’t just run wild like wolf! (I think he got in a bit or trouble at the gym for running around too much!)

Speaking of wolves, I said to Bricky, “I heard the wolves the other night, maybe you can go to the river and they will adopt you, it worked for Mogli.” (Jungle Book)

He didn’t think that was too funny. His response was, “that’s just a movie MOM!”

So then I had the dumb idea that on this terrible day I should cut his hair. I mean, really, it was getting so long that it wasn’t cute anymore… Well, how can I say that, it was REALLY cute. The problem is that although I think I am a decent hair cutter – it’s just NOT true! It was bad! I started out ok, but it only got worse the longer I tried!

This is how that went…

“Now this really is the most terrible day!”

“I’m so sorry buddy.”

“seriously!”

Further on in the horrible hair cut it continued…

“I’m going to change my name, not my middle and last name, just my first name. I can change my skin too.”

“Why?”

“So no one will know it’s me.”

He decided, after going through all his options, that he would wear a beanie to school. (I think that is against the rules, but I figure that his teacher can deal with that!)

Before... Last week at school, LOOK AT THOSE CUTE CURLS!


During! Who let me have the clippers anyway???


After! Oh my, I have really done it now! The wolf option is looking better and better to him every minute!


The solution! Do you think it will work?

OR...

If you don't want to read the previous post because it looks too long... I thought I'd recap it in simple version so you can get all the good stuff fast.

Here's what it said...

Psycho busy week, Temple, hubby in Texas, snake, coma, Sing, BREATHE!

All The Things That Happened This Week - or A Travel Log of Sorts - or - Random Weekly Stuff

It's so hard to title a post. Don't you think? Maybe it will make everyone not even want to read it. Maybe it will encourage everyone jump right on and read.
Whatever... I don't want this week to be a travel log, I just wanted to share some of the crazy stuff that happened!

First of all my DH is in Texas searching out poor flooded victims of Ike to help with his super hero powers and air blowers and dehumidifiers! I don't know all the logistics of what or how it will happen, but I hope he has a good time and doesn't feel like he has any regrets. So far (as he is just getting to the wet areas of Texas), he is in good spirits and still alive and well. He has taken a employee/family friend with him named Daniel. Daniel is an upstanding 18 year old guy that has helped us a lot around our house on different projects and he works at SM sometimes. Scott says he has been good company and he is a good worker.
Good Luck husband!

The last couple days of the week were amazingly crazy with tons of stuff. I started the two little ones in gymnastics again and the days fell on one of the same days as piano.

So a recap of some of it goes like this... Wednesday afternoon, leave for the Temple with friends. Session at 7:15 PM, dinner with friends lasts till all hours of the night and we don't get home till after midnight...

Thursday, leave in morning at 6:30 to go to grandma's, hang out with grandma, run errends and stuff. Before leaving Long Beach I get a phone call from our office gal of 4 years, saying that she will be quiting soon, (not a good phone call). Leave grandma's about 1:30. Get home and rustle up kids, get all piano books, gym clothes, homework and other stuff to do during waiting times and head out to gymnastics.

After gymnastics is over drive from Apple Valley to Hesperia with a stop in the middle for food. File in the piano teachers house and rush through piano, (no kid gets his normal amount of time, because there just isn't time to go around). Leave piano, drive home (by now it's after 8:00 PM) and start shuffeling kids to bed.

Forgotten from our minds was the visit from the ward bishopric member who then knocked on our door and wanted to extract large amounts of money from us to support prop 8! They suggested that we "give till it hurts". If we didn't have a tear in our eye when they left we hadn't given enough... I was crying (inside) when he finally left after 10:00 PM!

When he finally did leave Mel and Troy were already at our house for a impromptu meeting about Scott leaving to Texas. (Mind you, Scott and I hadn't really had any time in the day to really talk about his plans or desires up to this point!) We all agreed that Scott would go (which I believe was just the formal word to me so that I felt like we were all on the same page. Really, I missed the decision process earlier in the day.)

And so, after 11:30 PM Scott and I began packing!!! Friday didn't get much better. I ran around all day buying food, supplies, and obtaining money for the trip.

By Friday night when my house was full of neighbor kids and a couple of girls who were spending the night with Baillie, I was comatose! In the middle of my coma Carter went out to the garage to get something and ran right into a yellow and black snake in the garage... I went on a hunt for it to take a picture, but didn't have any luck! That was pretty cool.

I was able to recover on Saturday just in time to practice and sing in a trio for the Adult Session of Stake Conference! Our trio sounded beautiful (at least I think we did) and the whole conference was really nice.

Today's session of conference was wonderful and two of my kids sang along side lots of other youth in the youth chior. It was BEAUTIFUL!!! They sang 2 songs and actually sang the main song twice. It was titled, Keepers of His Light. Beautiful!

This is my mantra... "BREATHE" just breathe.

Next week's plan... Breathe... Take care of our kids. Call Scott often. Try to keep the house in some kid of order. Work on finding a replacement office employee, and Breathe!

So if this has turned out to be a bummer post, I'll apologize now!

Breathe!

Clara

Happy Birthday to my sweet Clara Baillie!
Born on 9-9-99,and today she turned 9!

Quotes

I was reading blogs from people on my list and angie has the neatest "vision" board. On it she had two quotes and I wanted to share them here because they are so awesome!

The first is a quote that I have loved for a long time! Every time I run across it I just want to drink it in. It is toatlly spoken just for me, I just need to get it!!!

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?”Actually, who are you not to be?
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
~Marianne Williamson~

The second one is one that I have seen only once before, but it is amazing also!

First of all, I want you to be proud you are a woman. I want you to feel the reality of what that means, to know who you truly are. You are literally a spirit daughter of heavenly parents with a divine nature and an eternal destiny. That surpassing truth should be fixed deep in your soul and be fundamental to every decision you make as you grow into mature womanhood. There could never be a greater authentication of your dignity, your worth, your privileges, and your promise. Your Father in Heaven knows your name and knows your circumstance. He hears your prayers. He knows your hopes and dreams, including your fears and frustrations. And He knows what you can become through faith in Him.
~Jeffrey R. Holland

I should do a vision board... When my office is clean... Never...
Ok Billie, dangit, be more positive! The first thing on my vision board would be these two quotes and then it would be something about being organized!

I hope these are uplifting, have a great weekend!