Monday Monday

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Last night, about 45 minutes after MIL left the phone rang.  It was MIL’s brother looking for her.  I told him she left and probably stopped at the store on her way home.  When I hung up my mom called.  MIL’s mother (age 98) had called my parents’ house looking for MIL, because she has the wrong phone number written down for us.  She was also looking for MIL.  When  followed was a series of phone calls from me to MIL, my mom, Gramma, and then to my mom again.  Finally I heard back from MIL.  Her sister is in the hospital.  She started getting blurry vision in her left eye and when they went to the hospital (where both her husband and son are on staff) they found she had bleeding on the brain.

MIL came over this evening for more scrapbooking and with more news.  They had her in a full body MRI looking for possible tumors.  After she had been here a while the daughter-in-law of MIL’s sister called.  The preliminary scan by a technician revealed nothing.  MIL is still going to have to break much of this news to Gramma.  Thanksgiving this year, which is usually a 25+ person affair will be 7.

Random fact:  Since I don’t have much biological family around most of my early Thanksgivings were spent with friends.

Friday night fun

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I am so glad it is finally Friday. This was a very long week. My class has been kind of off the wall. We’ve had fluctuating attendance and disruptions. We are working our way slowly through the book, focusing on the story, retelling, spelling, and grammar. I am skipping several skills about comprehension, certain organizational skills, and a few other skills. It still takes us foooreeever to get through certain things. I do like this group a great deal, but it is very trying.

Tonight we went to dinner with my parents, my sister, and her “little guy”. –Several years ago she was let go from her nursery school and then brought back as a one-on-one. When he moved on to kindergarten this year, in a special needs class, she was let go again. She does spend a lot of time with him to give his parents respite.– Little guy was very good while we sat at the restaurant. T talked with my parents while I talked to Mooch and Little guy. He is very sweet and did a good job answering my questions. I pulled out some yarn scraps and she used the to spell words. She is very good with him.

It angers me that to be a “highly qualified” para-educator you have to have a certain level of education. I understand that teachers should have the training and education, but for someone to be a para-educator, teacher’s aide, or one-on-one, shouldn’t experience and ability count for something? So my sister didn’t finish 60 hours of college, she is amazing with kids, takes direction well, and works well with other adults. Hang in there Mooch, someone will hire you.

Random fact: When I was in third grade (my favorite school year, ever) there were only 3 kids in my reading group. We learned to sign Sam’s Cookie. It was one of the funnest projects I ever did. I still love that book.

Scrapbooking

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My mother-in-law and I are making a scrapbook for her mom. Gramma P will be 99 on Christmas Eve, so for the first day of her 100th year we will give her a book for her life on Christmas.

MIL and I aren’t much alike and I am uncomfortable around her. This project has really given us something to do together. It’s kind of cool, because I know about scrapbooking and she doesn’t. She is really impressed with my tools and what I know how to do. We are having a good time.

I came up with an idea for the family tree and she has run with it and made it amazing. The roots are Gramma’s grandparents and great-grandparents. Then at the bottom of the trunk are her parents and coming off the low part are her sisters. At the center is a heart with Gramma’s initials + Grandpa’s. Coming off the top part are thick branches of MIL and her siblings. Each sibling has smaller branches with their kids (T’s generation) and then the next generation is little apples. 3 special people are on the tree in a different form. Gramma’s life long friend is a robin on one sister’s branch and their long time neighbor is a butterfly on another sister’s branch. MIL’s best friend is a female cardinal (with a shock of red hair) in a nest near her branch. It is so beautiful. It is truly a family tree.

Random fact: My father’s parents would be (about) 110 and 115 this year (he’s 66) and my mother’s parents would both be in their 80s (she’s 61).  My mother’s mother’s mother was born after my father’s mother.

A little bit of quiet time

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I would say I haven’t had anything to blog about, and that’s why I have been quiet, but really I have just been too busy.

I turned 31 on May 16. Not a big deal, just something I did. Last year, I blogged 30 things about me in the 30 days leading to my 30th birthday. It was fun. It was hard. It was lost in the great blog disaster of 2007. There have been several celebrations for this event.

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Mother’s Day weekend we stayed with Gramma Matriarch. She lives in Schenectady, New York. There was a full house and lots of food. On Saturday night we had Key Lime Pie and they all sang Happy Birthday. (celebration 1)

P1010203.JPG Sunday night was Chinese with my parents, my sister and her fiance (this parenthetical statement originally contained a negative comment about my sister’s fiance, I have taken it down). It was joint Mother’s day birthday dinner. There was no singing, but there were lots of cards. My mom dropped a little box off at my door the next day with a pair of very small star earrings. They are some sort of diamond like stone and very sparkly. I have had them in my ears ever since. (celebration 2)

Tuesday we headed south to Hadley, Mass for dinner with Best Lady, my sister and her fiance. We ate at a cute place I had heard about for years called All Fired Up. I took some pictures there but it was dark. You choose the meats and veggies you want and they cook it up for you. It is like those Japanese cook at the table places, but here you hand them a bowl of stuff and they cook it on a huge grill-thing with everyone else’s. We had a good time and stayed out very late. After dinner we went back to BL’s and played with her cats. Good times. (celebration 3)

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On my actual birthday my darling husband hid cards in various places around the house. He also did silly sweet things like put the toothpaste on my toothbrush for me. He didn’t finish the bathroom or buy me anything, but he did some nice things for me.

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I got great gifts from my awesome mother-in-law and my fabulous mother. MIL made me a little card game kit. She bought a little Finding Nemo (my favorite kid movie) lunchbox and filled it with 2 decks of cards, notepads, tiny pencils and card holders. She wrote on the card that I had mentioned I wanted to take our game with us to Star and she thought it was a great idea. My fabu mom got me cute little star earrings. She admitted that she got them at TJ Maxx on my birthday, but I still love them. Maybe even more since I know they weren’t expensive. I have worn them every day since.

Sunday night blues

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Watching SNL and eating leftovers. Easter weekend was pretty good. We went to T’s grandma’s in Schenectady. His mom and one cousin were there. Saturday we dyed eggs and went for a walk. It was pretty cold and windy and when we got back I coughed a lot. We had a great dinner with MIL’s best friend. MIL and T are vegetarians, so we don’t focus our meals around meat. MIL makes something called Good Earth with brown rice, broccoli, water chesnuts, mushrooms cashews, and cheese. We also had asparagus, ham, and awesome mashed potatoes (thanks cousin M). After dinner we had the best strawberry shortcake ever! Bisquick biscuits, strawberries, and homemade whipped cream with whipping cream and maple syrup. It was sweet and yummy and delish! We played 2 rounds of cards and I coughed my way through.

This morning we had an Easter egg hunt (yes, 4 adults: 30, 30, 66, and 97) and ate candy for hours. We did the puzzles in the newspaper and just chatted. Lunch was leftovers and 2 more games of cards. I nearly threw up from coughing, but I made it through. Our drive home was snowy and we even had to take a detour because of a major fire.

Altogether, Easter weekend was steller. I will probably post some pictures later.