Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

Its a good time to sit back and remember all of the things I am thankful for. There is a lot, so I will try to condense it a bit.

1. Family ~ I have TWO huge families to be thankful for. Parents and in laws that love me very much. Quite literally the best brother in the world. In law siblings who never make me feel like an "out law".

2. Friends ~ I am way blessed in the friendship department. I am lucky enough to have girlfriends who are always close, even if some live far away. I have high school friends and singing friends and work friends... its just great to know so many people that I can count on.

3. Jon ~ He falls into friends and family, but he is pretty special to me, so I tihnk he deserves his own category. He is pretty stinkin amazing and I am not sure where I would be without him.

4. Shelter ~ Its great to have a house! Of course, now I freak out about putting holes in the wall... but so far, our house has been great and rather energy-efficient. Happiness!

5. Work ~ Okay, so I spend a lot of time complaining about my two jobs... but really, I am so lucky in this economy to have two. And even though I had to work at the hospital on Thanksgiving this year... and Sat... and Sun... at least I have a place to go that pays me money to do something I like.

6. Lily ~ It might be silly to give my cat her own category... but I really strongly believe in pet therapy! She is doing phenomenally at our house and seems very content. Jon is a great cat daddy and she purrs more than I have heard in years. Looks like we will not have to take her back to my parent's place and I am super thankful for that.

7. Education ~ Its nice to keep learning. I am prone to falling into ruts where I feel stagnant and unmoving. Yet, I have not felt that in some years now. Its really really wonderful. Between new friends and becoming a wife and getting a house, I have had a lot of chances to grow and change and take in new experiences. I like that a lot. :)

8. Health ~ Okay, so my health is not stellar, and I need to do a post-Lupron update soon. But, on the whole, I am happy and reasonably healthy and very little holds me back right now. Since college, I have always had to worry about my stomach or my period preventing me from working and playing... but that is not the case in the past 8 or so months since I started Lupron. I am definitely having post-Lupron complications (hello hot flashes!) but overall, I feel pretty darn good. Its awesome.



I think that will suffice for now... I could go into details, but that would take forever.

Really, I can think of only one thing that is SUPER bugging me right now...

Hiccups. I have been hiccuping for about 3 hours now. Its frustrating and making me a bit ill to the stomach. If anyone knows a magical cure, let me know. Rawr.

time flies...

Well, yeah, it has been quite awhile since I have written. However, I have been justifiably busy. Here is a (hopefully) quick summary of what has been up since I last wrote....

1. Jon and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary with a night *in*. We made salmon and rice and broccoli and watched a movie. We were supposed to go out to Gilmore's in West Chester, courtesy of my mom, but with all that was going on (settling the house, packing, painting, flooring), a night in was much more of a delight.

2. Speaking of moving.... In the second half of September, we chose, bought, and put in about 480 sq ft of laminate flooring into the first floor of our townhome. When I say we, I mean Jon, my dad, my brother, Jon's dad, and Kris. It looks fantastic. Note to anyone putting in laminate flooring - get yourself some silicon spray to lube the joints, it goes much faster. Now on this flooring, everyone seemed to think it would take no time at all... but it ended up basically taking the WHOLE WEEK. So while Jon and crew were busily working nearly every night, I was home packing. Another note - don't use a table saw INSIDE your house because you will find sawdust where there is no business being sawdust.
Also, before you put down flooring, you have to rip up carpet. I think you can learn a lot from someone when you rip up their carpet... like how often their aggressive bulldog had "accidents". Gross. I have also never seen so many staples in my life. Jon, Chris, and I spent a fun 2 hours pulling up staples from the floor. So, yes, this was a huge project, but it really really really looks great. I am very proud, and I think it has definitely added value to the house.
We also painted. And painted. And painted more. Fortunately, I have lovely wonderful friends to help... Yassara, Dan, Kris, Krista, Nick, Josh. Jon's parents and my parents were a super huge help as well. We definitely could not have done it without them.

3. Actual moving day was Sept 28th. Thank goodness for friends. I cannot say that enough. Lauren, Dave, Mike, Mary, Josh, Nick, Steve, Jenn, Aaron, Yassara, Dan, KC, Emily, my brother most especially.... gosh, we are just super super blessed people to have friends like you! And we owe you all, big time. We filled up a HUGE uhaul with a lift. I got to drive it. I can say with confidence that I never ever want to be a truck driver. Scary! But we did it, and it was great.

4. Since then, Jon and I have been moving in... except for the fact that he has been traveling nonstop. The Monday after we moved in, he went to Germany for a full week, up through Sunday. He has been to Vermont once, Arkansas twice, and I think one or two other places since then. That part has really sucked. While he was in Germany, me and his parents painted our new baseboards... which brings me to something else...

5. organization. We could not put stuff in their proper places until the furniture was in the right place. We could not put furniture in the right place until the baseboards were painted. AND until we actually bought furniture that we needed. IKEA made a fortune off of us as we bought a buffet table, a desk, two bookshelves, a side table for the kitchen, and a bunch of other odds and ends. Oh, and we had to then BUILD it. The buffet table took 3 hours. 3 hours!!! Sigh. Despite all of the work, things really are pulling together so this weekend we....

6. Moved Lily in! So far, so good. I am not sure it has really hit her yet that there is an "outside" to this place as well, but I think she will soon figure it out. I am just enjoying it day by day. She actually seems really happy so far, though she is relying on Jon and I a lot to comfort her. But she is totally lovey and purring and doing all the wonderful "Lily" things that she has not done in the year she has lived at home with Harvey and without me. Yay! This might put a slight kink in the works for Jon's future dog... but we were not going to address that for another year or so anyway, so we will see what happens.

7. In other good news, Leslie and Ben got married!!! The day was cold, to say the least, but the rain went away and it was sunny and gorgeous and the leaves were at the perfect level of change. Leslie looked gorgeous! I got to be the "matron" of honor, which is totally strange and makes me feel super old, but it was a lot of fun. We had a day at the spa and a night out at the bars. It just went really well and we had a blast catching up with high school friends. :) Good stuff. We are very happy for them both.

8. Probably the biggest thing that happened over the past two months is that my grandfather, Bud, passed away. His date was Spet 17th, 2009. Here is the obit.

Bud was a pretty cool guy. He served during WWII in the Navy and, as I found out at the funeral, was actually at D-Day. His job was to jump out of the boat on to the sand and open the doors for the troops storming the beach. He did this 6 times that day before an army officer commandeered him to be their radio operator. After that, he traveled across France and Germany with their unit. Note that he signed up to join the Navy shortly after my Aunt Pat was born, leaving his new wife and baby for nearly 2 years.
He loved dancing. He met my grandmother, Nan, at a wedding and from then on, they went to see every "big band" that came into the area. As the big band era died down, they turned to square dancing and joined the "Why Knots" group. They traveled quite extensively during this time.
My grandfather also started the Suburban Contractors Association. During this time, he also started Keller and Wolf Paving with his brother-in-law.

All that AND he had 8 kids.

In his later years, Bud loved to golf and play cards. He taught nearly all of us grandkids how to cheat and hide a few cards under your seat. :)

He is missed, though I absolutely believe that he is in Heaven and that this is but a short parting.

My mom is doing okay with it. There was a funeral in Florida as well as one up here two weekends ago. I was slated to sing Amazing Grace and I made it through the first verse. I then looked up to see my mom bawling. I could not make it through the rest. Although I am not incredibly sad about Bud's death (because, as I said, I know he is happy), it kills me to see my mom so sad. I just cannot deal with that. So I started crying, but I mostly reined it in at the end. Then, my cousin Pam and I were to do the intercessory prayers, and she started choking up, which got me too. I really hate seeing people sad... but the funeral was good overall.


Unfortunately, Nan is not doing so hot. She has been kinda sick and depressed. She has checked out, basically, and signs suggest that she will be gone soon too. Most likely, that will affect me more since I am closer to Nan and we have always had a link. My mom is down there this weekend visiting. I hope she makes it through Christmas just for my mom's sake. She is really not ready to lose both of her parents.



So that is what is up with me. I think I covered most of the majorly important events.

Time to work on the house again - we have rehearsal here tonight, so I want to make sure it is presentable!