I don’t think I’m being dramatic when I say, this school year has been unlike any we’ve had before. There has been no normal. There has been no groove. It’s also not an exaggeration to say the last four months have been some of the hardest of my life. They’ve drained me emotionally, physically, creatively, and even spiritually. On bad days I was depressed; on good days I just felt spent. Today, I woke up and for the first time…
Here’s a link to Glenna’s obituary.
Caring for my mother-in-law the last four months has been hard, but I’ve been so grateful to have my little family during all of it. We’ve leaned on each other and grown together. When I told the kids that their Grandma Glenna had passed away, I told them it was okay to feel sad. Ellen told me “I’m not sad; I’m happy.” When I asked why, she said, “Because she’s with Jesus and she’s going to be alive again.” I’m so grateful…
Glenna/Mom told us she did her best sleep in the early morning hours. She spent the last six days in inpatient hospice care because her needs became too great to take care of in our home. Early this morning, she passed peacefully into the next world and is finally at rest. We will post funeral details when we have them.
Most of you know that Groundhog Day is inarguably my favorite holiday. (You can read about the origins of that love here.) This year though, I was not feeling like celebrating. Matters nationally (almost every cabinet pick and every executive order has upset me on some level), locally (there was a proposal on the ballot in November to raise money for schools that didn’t pass and the school district is looking at closing schools as early as next school year), and…
Last week Noel’s aunt and cousin came to town to visit Glenna (Noel’s mom) and ease some of our burdens (as well as visit and dote on Glenna). We turned the baby monitor off for a week (we use it so we can hear her at night, when we’re in the basement, outside, etc) and took advantage of being able to leave the house at the same time. We were content to do exotic things like shop for pants and…
The small flight of stairs in front of our house has become a huge problem as we’ve tried to figure out how to get my mother-in-law in and out of the house and it was becoming apparent that we needed a ramp. Because we are cheap big DIYers, we decided to build the ramp ourselves. The actual making of the ramp kept getting hijacked by life though (Christmas, my MIL being hospitalized, a debilitating round of norovirus, etc) and we…
I really struggled to get into the Christmas spirit this year. It’s not unusual for me to be a bit of a grinch this time of year, but this year I especially struggled. I’ve felt the need to feel my Savior’s love stronger than any other Christmas as we’ve dealt with the responsibility of being caretakers, hostility towards Noel’s profession,* and being hit repeatedly with sickness after sickness.** Even though I’ve felt many small moments of reassurance, I have not felt…
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the movie Big Fish. The movie is a fantasy drama, which generally isn’t my style, but it has long been a favorite movie of mine. It’s a quirky movie, but like a good poem, phrases of it come to me now and again at pertinent points in my life. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the dad and how he keeps telling his son “this isn’t how my story ends.” I’ve been wanting to get an…
October was one of those months where I would think, “Life can’t get any crazier than this” and then it would. My job as a middle school freelance educator came to an end at the beginning of the month and our family was ready to get back into a normal groove. Life had other plans though. Two big things happened in October: my mother-in-law was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer and my grandfather died. Those two things were pretty…