Sunday: Grandma's Funeral

Today we celebrated the life of Betty Hilldore.  It was a beautiful day, a sad day, and a long day.

We got to the funeral home for the family viewing/set-up time.  Grandma looked so nice.  She was in a pink sweater and her hair and make-up looked really good.  Someone found a note in her yearbook about her and a friend hitch-hiking to Zeeland for a "baseball game", trespassing on private property, and "more that [the friend] couldn't write here."  Everyone got a kick out of it.  Jamie also put together a very nice slide show and everyone commented on the pictures multiple times.

We stayed for the visitation.  Isaac and Joshua mostly disappeared for this, and I don't blame them.  A lot of people they didn't know where there and they had probably talked to most of the people they wanted to talk to already.  I think they had a few extra cookies.

We went in for the funeral.  The family had several members stand up and reflect on memories and it was beautiful.  There were some songs - Jamie made it through her song and cracked just the perfect amount at the end.  I wish the Chaplain had spoken more about heaven and Grandma's faith.  Several other family members mentioned it, but our eternal hope comes from God.  Ben shared a few memories, including how she and Grandpa always made him say Caboose and laughed over his pronunciation, how she was cut-throat in Uno (to the chagrin of the kids sometimes), and how if you didn't have what you needed in Yahtzee you just kept rolling.  (She did that to several family members in Yahtzee.)  But most of all that she was always so happy to see you.

We then went in the funeral procession to the cemetery.  I don't think I've actually been in a funeral procession before, but there is a high chance that I have been.  (Maybe even for Mom's funeral?  Details are so blurry.)  I didn't realize they were so slow!  It makes a lot of sense - you don't want to lose the last people and it seems like a proper mournful procession - but it is not what I was expecting.

The cemetery was wet and misty.  A few last words were said, the flowers placed on the casket (a white rose for me and Ben, snap dragons for Joshua.  Isaac ended up standing somewhere else), and it was lowered down.

Then we went to the boat barn for a final toast and party.  "To Grandma!"  I had Pino grigio, and in hind-sight I think it was a mistake.  I know it was only a half-cup, but I was already tired and something wiped me out.  I was done.  I went the top area and closed my eyes on an uncomfortable chair for a few minutes, but then the pizza came.  We weren't planning on staying very long anyway, so I got up to eat.  That was fine.  Then as we were leaving I was standing around, getting stuff ready and I was done.  Completely.  I just left to go to the car, possibly cutting off Ben's goodbyes, although that wasn't the intention.  I think the combination of a lot of standing, a lot of emotions, being a bit tired, and the wine just sent me over the edge.  

At home I took a long nap.  It was a poor time for a nap since it was already 6:30pm, but that was my only option.  I stayed up a little bit longer than normal before actually going to bed, but I think I was asleep just a little later than normal too.

Saturday: disappointing

It was a rather disappointing day.  Not really a bad day, but I probably would have changed several things if I could have.

*Our evening plans were changed last minute.

*Taxes are not as straight-forward as we were hoping this year.

*The kids had a rough afternoon

Friday: car

The car was fixed by the end of the day.  It meant I still needed to bring Ben to and from work, but in the scheme of things that wasn't too bad.

I was going to do a "day in pictures", but then I only remembered to take three pictures.  So I guess we don't get to see that today.  

I tried a new type of sausage for our pizza today.  The overall consensus was that it was either the same or slightly better.

Thursday: today's gonna' be a good day

This morning as I was walking to class I decided it was going to be a good day.

It started off well: Ben was able to work from home so I could have the car and the car was safe in the garage.  It was really a great place and time for it to die on me.

Today I got to teach ANDs and ORs and nesting them.  It's one of my favorites.

I ate lunch with Natalie!

My second class is great because they ask a lot of good questions.  It's great.

There was a student issue that was solved in a positive way.

Joshua has extra stuff after school so I can just wait for Isaac at Hope College.  It's a lot less driving.

Ben will have his glasses fixed tomorrow!

All the driving could be done this evening rather easily.  It was a lot more driving than normal because there was only one car, but the scheduling worked out just fine.

The car started!!  Ben tried and it didn't start.  He popped the hood and as he did so I tried and it started right up.  He didn't even get the hood all the way open and it started.  Yay!  We were able to get it to the mechanic, and hopefully it will be fixed tomorrow.

I ran the dishwasher this evening.  I often don't get the dishwasher started in the evening, but it's so nice in the morning to have it ready.

Wednesday: could have gone better

*Grandma passed away early this morning.  She's happy with Jesus now, even though she will be missed here.

*It was nice and rainy today.  Our lake is higher than it's been for a while.

*I still have no idea how to log into the Health Insurance website on the computer.  I can do it on my phone, and every time I log in on the phone I create a passkey so that I can log in on the computer and it never works.

*A friend is studying for a homeopathic medicine degree and this month...I'm not sure what she was studying but I got a free massage as she was practicing some of her stuff.

*The headache that was just barely there the last few days came for real.  Some ibuprofen took care of it, but it wasn't nice for a bit.

*We had fettucine as the pasta type today.  The kids didn't really like it, which doesn't surprise me.

*My car didn't start this evening.  I think the starter is out; it isn't the battery.  It's done this twice before but it started after a few tries, so we're hoping it'll start once more to get to the auto shop.  In the meantime, we're down to one car for a while.  At least it decided to not start while in the garage and with Ben's car available.  It could have been a ton more annoying.

*We played Space Base this evening - it's been a while since we've played.  I had a bunch of cards on the "1" and no 1's were rolled.  For about the first 10 rounds.  It was absurd.

Tuesday: normal day

It was a pretty normal day.  I worked.  I was tired.  I rock climbed a bit.  There were some great thunderstorms.

Well, I tried rather hard to find something else interesting.  Thunderstorms really were the most interesting part.

Monday: life

This morning I helped out at Kids' Food Basket.  We got done packing the lunches early, so that was really nice.  I also dropped off some donations (mostly clothes), but it was nice to get several things out of the house.

Time change is hard.  We're not quite falling asleep at the right time and then I was awake for an hour in the middle of the night.  I'm not sure that's a time change thing; it's been happening more often.  I got back to sleep a little bit, but it was harder than normal