Saturday: funeral

I went to Uncle Dave's funeral today.  It's been a while since I've seen a lot of the Fremont crew - I think 2016.  I missed one family reunion and a wedding since then because I had other plans before hearing the date.

Anyway, it was nice to see people, but the funeral itself was unexpectedly hard.  It wasn't hard because Uncle Dave died; it was hard because Mom died.  

It is sad that Uncle Dave died.  He was a fun uncle, a kid at heart, and loved God so much.  But at the same time he was recently moved to a memory unit and was dealing with macular degeneration...things were not going well and he was not the person he used to be.  He lived a good life and the funeral was truly a celebration of his life.  Two things can be true at the same time.  We can be sad he's no longer with us and happy that he is in heaven with Jesus.

Oh, the funeral reminded me so much of Mom.  I went into the sanctuary fully expecting to be ok: I hadn't even brought tissues.  But as we were sitting there all the memories and the grief came back before the service even started.  The grief isn't less, life has just grown around it.  But the flowers, the front row, and Mom's family just brought back too much.  Honestly, I felt a little silly about that.  This was not a funeral for Mom and my tears were not for Uncle Dave or his family.  They were just an overflow of my own grief and it sometimes hits unexpectedly.  Then as Dean was sharing a personal reflection he highlighted the fact that Uncle Dave "was in heaven and could see his parents, his sister Julie, and his nephew Bryan.  And, best of all, he could see Jesus."  I pretty much lost it again.  (Although it was also one of the first things I thought when I heard he died.)

But that's ok.  I know that I will be ok again.  They are tears of grief and loss, but they're also tears that show love.  I wouldn't have it any other way.

Friday: busy

It was a busy day!

I had breakfast with Betsy.  I tried a new item and it was good.  I'm always a bit worried trying new things because I like my standard options so much.

I donated blood.  There was a small hiccup, but overall it went well.

I proctored an exam.  No issues.

I took a nap.  Horizon joined me just as I needed to get up.

I worked on a puzzle with a friend.

I picked up the kids and made food.

We played Saboteur 2.  Isaac has wanted to play all week.

I sent some emails that I should have sent earlier in the day.

I joined a video chat with friends.

Thursday: classes

Today was the last day of classes.  Yay!  My graders have been really on top of grading this semester and several expressed interest in grading the final, so I'm hopeful there won't be a ton of grading over the next two weeks.

That being said, there are still several late assignments to catch up on and I did quite a bit of grading today from assignments due this week.  We'll see how everything pans out.  I also managed to send the instructions for the final to the printer.

Tomorrow is busy.  I have lots to do - some fun, a blood donation, and a lot of work.  Don't worry: I'll be annoyed at how few chores I got done but will enjoy time with people and take a nap anyway.

I still need to do one fold of the bread and put the laundry in the drier.  Oh, the tragedy of it all.  The biggest problem is that I don't want to get out of my chair.  I just want to be in bed.

Wednesday: meh

Today was just meh.  It wasn't really bad, but when I was giving my good part to Joshua it took me a while to find one.  (It snowed out today.  Although I could have also said the cheap donuts I found at the store.)

I did a few chores.  They felt like they took a long time.  I woke up from my nap so, so sad.  I can't completely remember why, but I think I was lonely.  Karate was self-defense the whole time and that isn't my favorite.  My partner, while really nice, didn't challenge me a ton.  In some ways that's nice because I don't feel old for doing all the moves slowly, but after a few times it would be nice to be able to make it a bit harder.

Tuesday: snow on the driveway

 I set my alarm 20 minutes early in case I needed to snow blow this morning.  About a hour ahead of the alarm, I started to  go in and out of sleep as I waited for the alarm to go off.  However, at one point I had 100% convinced myself that I could see that there was no snow on the driveway because I could see there was no new snow through our glass floor.  Therefore I didn't have to get out of bed!  Yay!

It was surprisingly hard to convince myself it was a dream.  

The alarm went off and there was only about an inch, so I went back to bed for twenty minutes.  I did end up snow blowing because I had time and it was fast.

Monday: Christmas decorations

Joshua has been the mastermind of Christmas decorations this year and it has been wonderful.  Other people have stepped in here and there, but he has done a majority of them.  I like the decorations, but I was not very excited to put them up this year.  I'm so glad he did it for me!

I didn't put many of my ornaments on the tree, but Jaq was not only put on the tree but also had his picture taken.  I rather wish Mom was around so that Nathan and I could include her on the text message we send every year to each other to confirm the silly mouse is on the tree.  She would be dismayed, but in a happy way.

Sunday: snow

We got a lot of snow overnight!  On the deck there was probably about 14"...most of that had fallen after 6pm when it got dark.

I snow blowed the driveway.  The snow blower worked well, but it was so slow.  I could only remove about 5 linear inches at a time, otherwise I'd overwhelm the auger.

Then the rest of the family came out and we played outside for close to two hours.  We started with a snowman and then made a fort with the snowman as a corner.  The snow was odd.  It was wet and packed well, but it didn't stick to itself well.  So when we were rolling snowballs for the snowman it mostly just compressed the snow under the snowball.  For the fort, I was in charge of making the bricks.  It was really satisfying to take them out of the mold.  (I did learn that I needed to pack the snow tightly but not too tightly, otherwise they wouldn't come out.)

The plow came through about ten minutes before the fort was finished, but after I had finished making bricks.  Luckily, I had snow blown extra in front of the mailbox and so barely any snow was put into our driveway!  Unluckily, our neighbors weren't so lucky.  It was also really wet snow and about to get colder.  The neighbors across from us had a huge pile so I shoveled enough that they could get out in the morning.  The neighbors diagonal from us didn't have a massive pile, but I shoveled a bit for them anyway.  There is no warm-up in the forecast, and dealing with icy snow on the driveway is not pleasant.

(This was after the plow came through!  I was so excited.)