She's Gone

My grandma died today. I'm so relieved for her - she's had essentially no quality of life for a very long time. She couldn't communicate at all. She had no dignity. I'm glad her suffering is over.

I'm so sad, though, that my mother wasn't there. She's been loathe to leave her side for days. Apparently, she had just left the hospital when her father died, and she's always regretted it. She's been very clear she wanted to be there when grandma passed. Today she had - of all silly things - a hair appointment and wanted very much to cancel it, but my Aunt Nita was convincing her she should just go and get it done. (Kate and I spent about an hour there this morning and heard the conversations) So my mom went ahead and left - just for an hour - and apparently shortly after she left, grandma died. I know that will break her heart, so it's breaking mine.

A Valuable Lesson (or, I am an Idiot)

This morning I was in a huge hurry - getting ready for our cleaning service to come and trying to get out of the house to meet our friends at 9:30. I had a few dishes from last night that sadly just didn't get hand washed, so in a flurry this morning, I stuck them in the oven to get them out of the way for the cleaning gal. (The second time ever in my life I have done this). Then I went on with my day.

Tonight, distracted by a screaming toddler, I turned on the oven to preheat for dinner, totally foregetting about my little stash trick. Thankfully, Pete called 10 minutes later and as I got up to get the phone I noticed large orange flames through the window of the oven. ONe of the dishes was a plastic bowl, which had caught fire at a fairly low temperature. I grabbed a fire extinguisher, and within a minute the flames were out and our kitchen and family room were full of noxious odor, smoke, and fire extinguisher chemicals.

I am sharing this very embarrassing story for two reasons. First of all, I'm sure you are all too smart and too organized to use the oven for anything other than its created purpose. If, however, you ever find yourself tempted to use it as storage - THINK AGAIN! Secondly, and most importantly, if you don't have convenient fire extinguishers in your house, I beg you to get them. We were lucky - this wound up being just an inconvenience. We're out a bowl, we'll have to replace the fire extinguisher, I had to clean soot off everything in my freshly cleaned house, and Kate learned a couple of not-so-appropriate words. However, if we'd not had that fire extinguisher, it would have been much worse.

Before moving into this house, I never had a fire extinguisher. Now we have a couple on the main floor and based on this are going to add them downstairs and upstairs. Hopefully you'll never have a moment of idiocy like mine that would require it, but if you do, you will be so grateful you had this small, effective tool available. I sure am.

Ugh

My first sewing project is floor pillows for my downstairs. I have an extra set of drapes from down there (long story) that I've taken apart, so I have a ton of free fabric to learn with. I spent probably about two hours on it tonight and I got one - that's right, ONE - 27" pillow cut out. It is remarkably hard to cut fabric. Well, at least to cut it straight, with the grain, in right angles. At this rate it's going to take me a YEAR just to do these darn pillows.

My parents flew home from AZ yesterday. My Grandma is in really bad shape. She's stopped eating or drinking anything now and is totally unresponsive. My mom is arranging for hospice care to come in and make her comfortable, but the general assumption is that she won't last much longer. Thankfully, her sister flew in and is helping her with all this stuff (her brothers are useless). It's hard to watch my Mom go through this, and harder still to even conceive of having to make such decisions myself someday. Makes me glad that Kate will at least have a sister to help her when we're the ones in the nursing home.

So...ugh. That's pretty much all I have to say about today.

Does Elmo make YOU cry?

We took Kate to Sesame Street Live this morning - it was a blast! She wasn't really dancing or clapping - she's not really that kind of kid - but she was enthralled. She seemed to enjoy the show, and she definitely liked the popcorn and the giant Elmo-head balloon we got her as a souvenir. I was a bit worried if she would like it since she's really not very interested in Sesame Street anymore, but she didn't stop talking about it all day!

The show started and I looked at Kate's delighted face and Pete and I were snuggling her and I totally teared up. I was just so overwhelmed by how lucky we are to have her and how much I love her and Pete and the baby and - ahhh! Please tell me I can chalk up "welling up with emotion at Sesame Street Live" to pregnancy hormones! Otherwise, I have completely flipped out.

2008: The Year I Learn to Sew

2008 is a year of many things for me. First of all, it's The Year We Fix the House. We'll be redoing the exterior of our house (thanks to faulty stucco wet rot - more to come on that later). That will be an enormous and expensive project - I can't even really comprehend how huge it's going to be.

Obviously, it's also The Year of the Second Baby. So, in other words, all other "Year Of" goals better be accomplished by early June, because once the little one makes her appearance, all bets are off for me getting anything else done for the rest of the year. My only goals beyond that point will be to sleep and to take off that baby weight faster than last time.

I've also decided it's The Year I Learn to Sew. I've had a sewing machine for years. When we bought this house my mom helped me sew some pillows for our family room, which turned out great. Since then, though, with the sole exception of mending a torn painting tarp, the machine has been stashed away. I couldn't tell you how to wind a bobbin right now if my life depended on it.

This, in itself, would be no real issue, if it wasn't for the undue influence of my mother. You see, anytime I've decorated a room or had something sewn for me, my mother somehow manages to convince me to buy extra fabric for pillows, accents, etc. She convinces me it's so much cheaper to do it myself (which is true) and that she'll come up for a couple days and help me (which is NOT true). So I have a LOT of fabric that I'm tired of looking at, and the time has come.

I should be able to figure this out, right? I mean, I'm a reasonably smart person. I used to manage dozens of people and projects costing tens of millions of dollars. Why does that little white machine intimidate me so much? It's crazy. So today we went to JoAnn fabric and I got some supplies to get me started on my upcoming sewing binge. First up: floor pillows for downstairs.

Wish me luck.

Big Girl Bed

I've been having a ball lately finally getting moving on preparing a "big girl bedroom" for Kate. We went back and forth a lot about whether to move Kate or just move the crib into a different room and decorate that room for the baby. However, we knew we weren't going to buy another glider, and decided that since that room was designed for a baby - and we've had a few instances of Kate climbing out of her crib - the time had come to move her.

I have some old twin beds my mom got at an auction years ago, which she gave to me when they moved up from Austin. I'm going to paint one white and get a white dresser. I'm being a total lemming and doing Pottery Barn Kids (Audry) bedding for her, but I just can't help myself - it's so darn cute!! So much of the really kids-y stuff is so cheaply made, and thankfully Kate's not yet into Dora or Princesses to the point where she has an opinion, so I can still make the decision. At least the PBK stuff is nicely made and adorable. I think we will go pink on the walls. It's so much fun!!

Now I just need to get rid of my old bedroom set that's still taking up space in Kate's soon-to-be room. It's such a pretty set (many of you may remember it from my room in Austin), but it's a full bed and our rooms just aren't big enough for that. The bed and dresser fit, but then there's no room for anything else, and I really like the idea of her having some play space in her room, so she can entertain herself while I'm in the shower, etc. So, if you know anyone in the market, let me know. My sister may take it - it was actually hers first - but if not it'll have to go on craigslist. Makes me kind of sad, but as I get older I am far less attached to "things" and much more appreciative of getting stuff we don't want/need out of the house!

It feels sort of strange to be really making strides on this, now. I guess we're accepting that there's most likely going to be another teeny tiny person around here in a few months!!

But for the grace of God

There was another story in the paper today about some college kid dying of alcohol poisoning, after a night of partying. "They drink a lot all the time," their friends say. "They didn't even seem that drunk." It seems there's a story like this every week lately.

I so clearly remember being one of those kids. Most of you who read this blog were right there with me - often literally by my side. While we were pretty good at looking out for each other, we pushed those limits so very far so often. We were damn lucky.

I read these stories and it's not the kids I identify with anymore - my heart breaks for those parents. Never once did I realize how much I was gambling with something so precious to my parents. You just don't get it until you're on the other side. And I hope and pray my girls are more wise, more careful.

Or at least just as damn lucky.