Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Thankful for Grandmothers

The week before Thanksgiving I decided I should probably go ahead and fly home to Santa Fe for the holiday weekend. I'll be here in Virginia for Christmas, so I wanted to see my New Mexico grandparents sooner rather than later. The week before Thanksgiving my Grandmother had surgery on her spine, which was a pretty big deal. She's still in the hospital but is doing well and has moved to rehab. Obviously she couldn't join us for our Thanksgiving meal, but I got to visit with her three days in a row during my short trip.

On the other side of my family, another pretty big deal is going on this week in Richmond. In the past few months my Grandma has been severely affected by Alzheimer's, and tomorrow she will move into the memory care ward of an assisted living facility. As you might imagine, the whole family is struggling with this change in various ways. I got to visit with Grandma on Sunday after I got back from New Mexico. We went out for lunch and had a good time.

I'm very blessed and grateful to have such great grandmothers. I also have great grandfathers, and my heart goes out to both of them during these difficult times.

Thursday, November 03, 2011

a list of things I've squeezed in between homework

Sorry I never post anymore. I'm pretty busy these days. And by "these days," I mean this semester. It's the same old story about work and reading, blah blah blah.

Anyway, I do manage to fit in a few fun things, and I'd like to share them here, mostly because this blog is the only journal-type-thing I keep and maybe I will want to remember these some day.

Last weekend I went to Richmond to spend time with my family. My grandma isn't doing so hot these days, but it was good to be with her and the others. I had to spend a lot of my time reading, but we enjoyed meals together, including a good Indian lunch.

The weekend before that I spent most of Saturday at Wintergreen (a ski resort) watching Josh and four other guys on his team complete the Tough Mudder challenge. It was a nine-mile course with lots of obstacles, including a pool of ice, dark tubes, ropes to climb, and live wires to run through. They had a good time and no one broke any bones, so that was good. I took pictures when I could actually get to the obstacles, but there were about two hours when I didn't see them so I ate lunch, drank a beer, and rode the chair lift.

The weekend before that Josh and I went to his grandparents' house. We ate food and played games, and I got a little reading in there, too.

I'm not exactly sure on the timing because we're going back several weeks here, but I think two weeks before the trip to Josh's grandparents I was in Richmond for the weekend while my mom was there, so I got to spend time with her and the rest of the family.

There was another weekend sometime before that when I went to Fredericksburg on a Saturday night to visit my friend Ryan and his wife. They made good Japanese food, and we played poker.

So, as you can see, my nose isn't always stuck in a book. But after doing fun things I have to make up the homework I missed, and then I don't have time to blog. Sorry.