A Southern Rehabilitation

Tomorrow will be the funeral service for my aunt. She passed away unexpectedly last Sunday night, November 20, 2016. The doctor called me at 11pm. I was stunned. We had planned to go see her this weekend because all the kids are in town. She had been in the hospital for a week. She was having tests to determine the cause of the seizures she had been having the previous few days. While in the hospital, she developed some sort of delirium...talking constantly, no sleep for close to 48 hours, and a general concern that things were going from bad to worse. However, the doctors/nurses never anticipated death as an outcome. Suddenly her heart just stopped. Stopped. There were no warning signs, no weird arrhythmia, no drop in oxygen levels, nothing. She simply came to the end. A complete flatline. The last couple of hours I have been planning what I want to say during the service. Today is Thanksgiving. How odd to be thinking of death on Thanksgiving, but yet it couldn't be more perfect...

My blogging has taken a back seat of late. It looks like I've only been writing once a month for a long time now. I'm not really sure if it is because I can't come up with something to write about that is interesting enough to read or it's because I've had an "I'm not really feeling it" kind of mood for a few months or because I've been really busy and just no time to write the way I want to write. It does take me hours to crank one of these things out. I constantly re-read every sentence to make sure it says just what I want it to say in the way I want to say it. I think it is a combination of all the above. Let me lay this out for you... In the last 2 months, I have had to put my aunt's condo on the market (and btw, she knows nothing about it). If you have ever sold a house or any kind of property, you know there is a ton of work involved in this process and many pieces must come together to get it all where it needs to be in order for it t...

When your first child gets married, it's a really big deal. It's new and you learn as you go and you don't know what to expect and it's exciting. So I have to post about Jared and Marenda's wedding. It was wonderful. It was beautiful. It was a day to remember. The weeks leading up to the wedding were stressful; I'm not gonna lie. Weddings are SO MUCH WORK! Plus so expensive even on a budget. Budget? HA HA  Not only is the "lead up to the big day" a lot of work and stressful, but it is highly emotional. Emotional in many ways... as the mom of the groom I admit my job was much less than the mom of the bride (thank God), however, I bet our emotions were the same. Our babies, our Littles, the children we birthed and raised and gave our lives to will no longer be ours. It's a real reckoning moment for sure. I don't know about you, but as a parent one of my main concerns when Jared shared he was getting married was "Oh, my! How in the world ...

Yesterday was August 13, 2016. It was a hot summer night on August 13, 2006, when I got the call that my grandmother was dying. I remember I had been to a movie with a bunch of teenage kids. The movie was Talledega Nights . When I got home, the call came and I froze. I didn't hurry but if I had of hurried, I might have made it before she passed. I was in shock and didn't want to believe it. If I put off going long enough, it would all be over. My oldest son drove me to Asheville that night. It was very late when we got to the nursing home. They had done nothing to her, didn't move her, just left her in the bed. When we walked into her room, it was more than I could stand at the moment. The woman I loved most in this world was dead; she was lying there with her mouth open, and we couldn't even close it. I tried. I walked out for a few minutes to try and get a grip on the emotions that were enveloping me while my sweet son stayed in the room with her for a bit. I was hard...

This post is going to be short and sweet, but I just felt the need to write "something" today. Anything. Last week was our very first family vacation in this new way of life. All the kids and me. It was wonderful. Anyway, today is another day. It happens to be August 3. I got married on August 3, 1984. Today would have been our anniversary, our 32nd anniversary. This is not a post about how sad I am or how I'm drowning in the memories. It's a post about cleaning out the crap in every sense of the word. I have spent two days this week at our old house... I will call it the Bridgewood House (that's the name of the street). J has now moved out and living in another city. My oldest son has moved out and now living in his own apartment in Clemmons. My youngest son is the only one at the house now and he isn't going to go easy. He is latching on and refusing to leave until he absolutely has to go. This may be the last week he is there. There isn't much left a...

Happy July 4th, America!! Let Freedom Ring!! I love July 4th! For Americans, it has great meaning! (or it should)  It is the celebration of our Independence Day. Freedom is a wonderful thing. Just the word "freedom" sounds wonderful. I am celebrating America's Independence Day at the beach this year. I also love the beach. :) I am here with my friend and her family. I actually ran away and she was kind enough to invite me to stay with her clan this week. (Friends. The salt of life--mine anyway.)  I'm one of those people that are a firm believer in God, Family, Country. The colors of my blood are red, white and blue. I proudly wave my American flag in front of my home. I vote at every possible opportunity. I feel duty bound to do so. I know that the 2016 Presidential election is cause for great alarm and some will choose not to vote because they feel they cannot support either candidate. I can't do that. I will vote because I have the freedom and privilege ...

I was on the phone with my daughter the other day and I said to her, "It's just a different season. A different season for parenting, for life, for everything it seems." She said, "Well, this 'different season' sucks." Part of me agrees with her. Since I've last blogged, my son has gotten married, my brother has gotten married, my ex-husband will be getting married in a couple of weeks, my children's friends are getting married one right after the other...it seems to be a never-ending season of weddings. All these weddings certainly bring many emotions to the forefront again and it also brings the reminder of a colossal failure. It can't be helped. It just does. Other things have happened as well. I have closed out my first year of teaching at a new school; I have decided to change grade levels for next year. Instead of teaching Kindergarten, I will be moving to First. I am excited about the change. I think it's time to switch things ...