pictures, at long last

So I've been meaning to load pictures for a while - my apologies for the delay. It is cold here... not as cold as where aunti jenni is, but it is cold - last night we got near -30, but today brought some delightful -10 ish weather. It snowed today so the roads are starting to go in the crapper, but it will be nice to see the weather break. You can't do much of anything in this weather...

So here is Kyle with the snowman we made during the first couple days of November.
They melted the very next day. They were cute while they lasted.

Here's Kyle being ever so cute in the snow. He was a great sport.
He didn't do much of the rolling - so I got a great workout.
Those snowmen heads were HEAVY!

Here is Aunti Jenni, Derrell, Uncle Phil (holding Kyle) and Phil (Jenni's son)
This was the ten minutes we saw him at our house. He had terrible luck
flying into Quesnel and then had to head back before we got to visit with
him again. Hopefully he will come and visit us again soon...

Here is Michael at Grandma & Grandpa's - checking everything out.

Here is Grandpa giving the boys a ride. Yee haw!

to do list

For those of you counting it is now 30 days until Christmas. Kyle is counting the seconds to Santa's arrival. I'm not really doing much of anything for Christmas this year, specifically in the present department. We've decided to keep it pretty light on the gifts and try to focus more about family... or that is what I'm telling myself anyway. We will get a few things for the boys, but that is about it - well except for a few homemade treats/surprises... which brings me to my to do list.

I've been told that I'm to stay away from work in December.... great - so that means that I have a lot of time to finish all my scrapbooking and my powerpoint gift for my grandma. I'm also working on a story book about my grandma who passed away. Paula showed me a scrapbook her friend did when her mom passed away and I want to do something similar, while also capturing some of the stories we have for my grandma. For my family reading - if you have anything - a short recollection or even something long winded - your stories help us all remember and I don't won't those pieces to be lost. Please share them - email me at aakcheng@gmail.com

Today was a rough day on that front. I had to proof my grandma's obituary. I nearly started crying in the newspaper office, but held it together... I'm trying to not let the pain of it all get to me. I manage to squeak in some of ER and found myself pretty upset over the woman in the bus telling Lockheart about her son... I guess there will always be triggers.

As you can see by my little temperature on your left, it is DAMN cold in Quesnel. I'm freezing... I'm going to finish this up and get to bed. I just want to be cuddled and fall asleep in the arms of my beautiful husband. Good night friends and countrymen - thank you for lending your ear. :)

Note to Paula - to post all you have to do is make an account - user name and password - why am I mentioning this - well I was wondering if the temperature thing you gave me is broken or if they just don't work in negative temperatures....

finding the groove

My sister flew home this morning. She was sadly missed by Kyle and Michael. Kyle has officially named our guest suite as Aunti Mel's room. So consider yourself to have a permenant home with us. :) Thank you for coming to stay with us. The 'air' about you will be sorely missed :)

I'm tired tonight, but have found my groove working - desperately trying to catch up on mounds of work. Letting two jobs go for a week is proving to be more difficult than a thought to get back in to.

I've started drinking coffee again. This morning before we left Quesnel we stopped for breakfast pick me ups from A & W (blah) , when the drive thru window open I nearly changed my order to just coffee - with a side of coffee. I'm trying to keep it to a minimum - I don't want to get dependent on it - but... oh the smell... mmmm coffee orgasm in three, two, one.. aaaahhhhhh. Thank you - was it as good for you as it was for me :)

Ok - I'm in better spirits tonight and I really should carry on with my work. Nightie night.

a long time gone

As you, my dear readers, have likely guessed my grandma passed away. She left us on Monday November 6 and we had her funeral on Friday November 10. It has been a hard couple of days and I don't believe that the pain of it all will ease any time soon. It seems that every time I turn a corner or look at something I have a recollection of her.

Her funeral was the first I've ever been to. When we intially walked in I was shocked by how few people were there. I had a rage and anger... the reverend began to speak and was pointed in a different direction and explained that the family was sitting seperately. Her eulogy and songs took 40 minutes. The songs weren't good - I didn't agree with the choices - and I didn't agree with the eulogy. I was left open mouthed when the reverend said that grandma had been in a relationship that brought my uncle rick into the world before her marriage with my grandfather and summarized with a 'but things happen'. I sat there open mouthed for a while... I couldn't believe it. I don't know if anyone else was a shocked as I was. I knew, but I didn't think it needed to be announced at her funeral. I felt kind of drunk during the eulogy. I didn't know what to do with myself - I felt giggly and then without warning I broke down. I cried threw the entire last song. When we left I watched as my family broke down. I turned away and cried. We went to her tea and it was terrible seeing all the sad faces. My other grandma sat with us, she asked how I was - I said fine and then I told Andy I needed to leave. I left the tea and cried outside for a while. I was disappointed with the eulogy and myself for grieving. I know - that sounds crazy but I'm not comfortable with feeling like that.

Andy, being the great man that he is, talked things through with me and we went back in for a while. The tea was about an hour. Afterward some family came to my house and we had some snacks and just hung out.

Last night my mom came by and it was decided that I was to get one of grandma's things - this is pretty weird because they haven't been giving away anything as her will hasn't been evaluated. She handed me her bible. They gave it to me because she had kept newspaper clippings of me in it... there weren't any other pictures of or notes to anyone else. It hurt to take it.

I went through it page by page last night, looking for her hand writing and underlining. She had written on at least a hundred pages and I only made it half way. I didn't realize how important the bible had been to her. I spent many a thursday afternoon in bible study with her and going to church on sunday with her but I had it in my head that she liked breaking the rules of the church and didn't really care. I was wrong. She loved her God and I missed it. Seeing her handwriting made me hurt even more because I know that I will never get anything else with her handwriting on it. I won't get a christmas card this year saying she loved me this year.

Something I'm really struggling with right now is that this is only the beginning of loss. I know I can't live like that but that is how it feels. How many other people will I lose? How many people will lose me? Am I being selfish? Should I believe that there is something else after death? Did she really go to a better place? That is what is really killing me inside, the uncertainty of it all. I want there to be more - I want to believe that there is something else to this life but right now I'm not believing it - something in me is saying that that was truly it. She lived her life and loved us all and we loved her and that is it. She's gone and we are left to grieve our loss.

What do I take away from all of this? I know that I can be a better person. I know that I need to really look at what is important to me and what isn't, because there really aren't as many hours or days as I thought there would be. I need to go and have a shower. I hope that my future posts will be a bit more up beat and not so depressing. Thank you for reading and thank you for your thoughts and prayers through all this.

Somnambulism

Also known as sleep walking. Mine is back with a venegance right now. I've been trying to control it by putting up obstacles, but it isn't working. I'm able to get up walk to Michael's room, climb over the gate and then - well some nights I'm sleeping there for a while and then coming back to my bed, some nights I'm picking Michael up and bringing him to my bed... it is driving me crazy! Worse, I don't know if I'm doing anything else - I'm scared to video tape me doing it because... well the idea of it creeps me out - there are too many what if I'm doing... ???? who knows what... I think it is about not getting enough sleep and my body hears Michael make a sound and that is the reaction - just get up - get him and go back to full sleep... I don't want him in my bed though - so if anyone has any helpful hints - I will happily accept them.

My grandma was finally moved to palliative care on the weekend. She had a bowel obstruction as a result of the meds used for fixing her arm. They put in a gastric tube which runs from your stomach out your nose - not nice - that was in until last night. She pulled it out at 2am. There was talk that once that was out she would go quickly - probably with in 6 hours, because (to be blunt) she would drowned. Because she is in a palliative bed now they have stopped feeding her, she is also only getting teaspoons of water - so her stomach isn't overloading like they had anticipated. At this point, they have removed all her IV's and she is getting morphine every 30 minutes, plus she is wearing a couple of drug patches. She seems comfortable. It has been eye opening and heart wrenching to visit her and see her boys (my dad and uncles) try to talk with her and try to make peace with themselves that she isn't going to be her much longer. The morphine is causing her breaths to slow. She will take a long breath and then hold it for 15 or 20 seconds. This has increased over the past two days.

I don't know how I thought I was going to deal with this, but I'm not coping very well. With Andy gone and very few breaks from the kids I've lost it a few times. I break down every time I leave the hospital. I've been going at least once a day. I don't need to say anything anymore - I talked to her at the beginning of the week... now it just hurts to say anything. My uncle sat with her today and gave her some water and I just wanted to breakdown. I held it together because I don't feel super comfortable crying with them - the men, even women, in my family don't really show a lot of emotion - well all except anger - I've seen loads of that :)

I guess this is all part of grief, and as a first timer to it I'm struggling - and that is being kind. I can't believe what some of my family and friends have already had to experience and dealt with. What do you do? How did you cope? Today I thought about lunch and cried in the car all the way home because I knew that I could eat and she couldn't. Then I started thinking about what her last meal was and meals we'd had and it just snowballed on me. I barely made it home.

Well I don't want my blog to turn into the land of depression. I'm interested in your thoughts if you feel like sharing and I hope no one minds me spilling my guts like this. It is the only place I have right now to try to deal with it.

I better go - I need to clean up my kitchen - guests start arriving tomorrow. It is snowing here tonight - we've gotten about 2 inches in three hours... fun :)

Halloween

After weeks of 'I'm going to be a pirate for Halloween.' Kyle changed his mind two days before Halloween and asked to be a ghostbuster. So in a couple of hours we pulled together his costume. All homemade :)

How ya gonna call?

Michael sans costume. He wore a pumpkin outfit, but once it was on I didn't have a camera... he proceeded to sleep most of the night in it - but I wasn't thinking about my camera last night.

Here is Kyle at soccer. He was the only kid to show up in a costume. He reminded everyone throughout the session that he was a ghostbuster - as seen in this picture.