Grandparents

The day after Thanksgiving I found myself in Daniel's Grandmother's bathroom and it dawned on me that there are so many things that make me think of each of the different grandparents in my life. I think this thought process started while I was in the bathroom and noticing (for the millionth time) all of the little bottles that Grandmother had daintily set out (just so) on her counter.

This got me to thinking about all of the things that remind me of my grandparents and of all the good memories that I will forever associate with grandparents. This thought process on a Friday morning feels somewhat of a foreshadowing as Saturday afternoon we learned that Daniel's Grandma was in the hospital and things were not looking so good. Thankfully we will were able to visit her twice in the hospital. Lord willing we will visit her again, but if not, I am thankful that we were able to see her.

I hope that in the future I will remember Daniel's Grandma for her spiritedness and not for the frail woman in the hospital bed with an oxygen mask covering her face. I hope that I will instead always think of her when I go to the ocean and remember the time we took her to The Outer Banks and saw her experience putting her feet in the ocean for the first time (at 80+ years of age). I will forever remember her delight at the waves and magnitude of the water.

As for my other grandparents... I have had 2 of my great grandparents, 2 grandpa's and Daniel's Nana die in my lifetime.

I think that even though I met them, the things I will remember about Great Grandma and Grandpa Hotchkiss will be the stories that were passed down to me from my mother.

I will remember my Grandpa Moore working in his garden and shucking corn with him on the back patio.

I will remember Joe Davis for the way he had so many life stories to share and for how wonderfully happy he made my Grandma.

I will remember Daniel's Nana from the summer that we both lived at Grandmother's house and our time spent around the kitchen table sharing breakfast together.

For those still living, I hold precious memories and I hope that there will be more to come.

I will forever be grateful for my Grandma and that she shared with me how to sew. I will always enjoy hearing her stories from the Great Depression and the lessons those stories have taught me. I will always hold dear the memories of making ice cream on her back patio (with the ice cream maker that you had to physically crank for 2 hours).

I will always be thankful for my Nana and all of the special time that we have shared over the years - over hot chocolate when I was young and over coffee now that I am grown.

I love my Grandpa's wit and his jokes. I love when he gets out his guitar and plays songs for us. I am thankful that he is such a strong leader in our family.

I never had the opportunity to meet any of Daniel's grandfathers, but I have been told many stories about them and wish I had had the opportunity to meet them.

I am thankful for Daniel's Grandmother and the opportunity that I had to live with her the summer before we were married. I am thankful for our many talks that happen whenever Daniel and I stay at her house.

I am so thankful to have so many grandparents that are still alive and a part of my life. I am thankful that I am able to see all of them at least once a year (when I am lucky, more than that). For this Thanksgiving, my special prayer of thanks is for these wonderful people who are in my life and who have shaped and continue to shape who I am.

Crazy Busy Thanksgiving

So it is officially two days after Turkey day and Daniel and I are still making the rounds. Thursday was a pretty insane day - we were in 5 different cities visiting a throng of different people. Wish we had more time for longer visits, but so thankful we are seeing so many. Hate that we can't see everybody.

Wednesday we left Charlotte around 3:30 PM to head to Chattanooga. Traffic from Charlotte to Greenville was horrendous. We almost had a wreck due to the insane drivers that don't know how to drive. Surprisingly Atlanta wasn't too bad and we made it to Chattanooga after only 8 hours in the car (it should have been less than 6).

Anyways, we spent the night at the Reynolds on Signal Mountain - don't think we could have found their house (that close to midnight) without our trusty GPS.

Thursday morning started with visiting with the Reynolds. Andrew told us the story of the pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving during breakfast, then after breakfast Andrew gave me a tour of the house and Sadie entertained us. We were on the road again by 9:30. Getting off the mountain we got a little lost and then ran into a wreck which made our trip to LaVergne take a little longer.

We rolled into LaVergne a little after 11 am and celebrated Thanksgiving at Daniel's grandmother's house with their traditional Thanksgiving breakfast. After breakfast we headed to Smyrna to see Emily and Josh's house and for more visiting. After that we headed to Murfreesboro to see Daniel's dad. After a quick visit with him we headed to Springfield to meet up with Mark and the Allgoods at the Gores (sound confusing yet?). We ate leftover turkey there and visited for about 2 hours before heading to Bellvue to see Kristalynne (and meet her boyfriend Nick). After visiting until after midnight, we headed back to LaVergne to spend the night at Grandmothers. Whew... saw lots of people and dropped into bed around 2.

So that was our Thanksgiving day. Yesterday was more mellow. We hung out at Grandmothers for a majority of the day - even helped Daniels' grandmother and mom set up the Christmas tree and decorate it. Then we headed to Madison to meet my brother for dinner and a movie. This led to another late night of getting home after midnight.

Today is lunch in Murfreesboro with Daniel's dad and extended family and then back to LaVergne to celebrate early Christmas and Emily's birthday with Daniel's mom and extended family.

Today is ... almost ... over ...

Teaching days are always so long for me. Today was worse than usual because I was trying to get the January issue of Inventors Digest wrapped up and uploaded to the printer.

Per the norm, Murphy's Law was hard at work. My computer was slow... every time I tried to upload my internet and server connection would randomly disconnect. Therefore what should have taken a few hours, ended up taking the entire day. And when I say entire day, I mean from 7:45 this morning to 5:15 this afternoon (with no breaks and lunch at my desk).

It was so bad that I was having to create one page PDFs (from a 48-page document) and upload the individual pages one at a time. Thank goodness Juan is in Chile and I could multi-task by making PDFs on my computer and uploading on Juan's.

Now I am sitting at school, waiting for my students to finish up their projects and scoot out of here so that I can drive the 45 minutes home.

Thank goodness there are only 2.5 (ish) working days left in this week.

Holiday Season

I love this time of year... starting with my birthday and going through the new year. It seems like these weekends are filled with time spent with friends and family and celebrations and I absolutely love it.

So far we have celebrated my birthday, enjoyed a visit with the Reynolds family (last weekend) and then this weekend enjoyed a visit with Julie and Luke. This coming week will take us to Nashville for Thanksgiving with Daniel's family, but we will also get to see friends. Between now and Christmas, we are also looking forward to a long weekend at the beach to celebrate our 6th anniversary.

I am so very thankful for friends and family. I love this time to reconnect. I love sharing stories over cups of coffee or reminiscing in front of fireplaces. I love gathering around dinner tables to share meals and lives together. Or even just remembering what it was like to be roommates. I will not be able to see all of those that I love, but look forward to those future times when we will meet again. I am thankful for the reconnections that have taken place and I am looking forward to the ones in the coming weeks. Like I said, I LOVE this time of year.

High Cholesterol

Last year I found out that I have high cholesterol. This is probably genetic, but it is pretty high so I have been trying to adjust over the last year by eating/exercising better. Over the past several months it is has gotten harder to eat well and exercise consistently. Upon a new test, my cholesterol is still really high. Hopefully I can get this under control so that I won't have to take meds...

Special Request - chainsaw accident

This note is for a friend that wanted to know more about Daniel's redneck accident. I was going to just link to the original post about Daniel's chainsaw accident, but I just searched for it and it basically just gives an update that we were at the hospital and asked for prayers.

So here is the whole story (for those of you who have yet to hear it or read about it)... let's just say that accidents and trips to the hospital occur more than we would like them to.

On March 4, 2007, Daniel and I were working on one of our many house renovation projects. This particular project had us outside building a fence. After several hours of digging holes for fence posts, we were ready to cut down the split rails to the right length.

Daniel was using a chainsaw for this process since the posts were large, cumbersome and old. I held the posts in place (a human clamp of sorts) while Daniel trimmed the posts. They had to be cut to taper at the ends to fit in the holes of the vertical posts.

We were on the last post and Daniel was having to force the saw because the wood was really old and hard. Also the blade was probably starting to dull after an afternoon of cutting posts. At the last moment, Daniel was putting a lot of pressure on the saw and the wood broke and the saw jerked out of the wood and into Daniel's leg.

We both looked down and saw shredded blue jeans and blood. I was pretty freaked out while Daniel remained calm and collected. Daniel immediately dropped the saw and clamped his hands around his leg. I ran inside to grab wallets, insurance cards, towels, cell phones and was soon back outside helping Daniel into our car. I sped us to the ER - we figured that was the fastest (and cheapest) thing to do.

We got to the ER and soon Daniel was being wheeled into in an ER room for examination. Initially they thought the would be able to stitch up the gash in the ER and let us go home. But after xrays and several different opinions, the doctor's found that the saw had gone down to the bone and they decided surgery to close the wound would be the most prudent thing to do. There was fear of infection in the bone.

The most interesting thing about this particular ER visit were all the people working in the ER that dropped by our room to see the "chainsaw" victim.

Daniel got 21 stitches in his leg to form an upside down V shape on the inside of his calf. He was very lucky that the chainsaw did not hit any muscles, tendons or bone. He was in the hospital for the weekend and on crutches for 2 weeks while he recovered.

Now we say that Daniel is a real redneck because he has a chainsaw story to tell...

Insurance Woes...

The bills from my week of ER visits and the hospital stay are finally trickling in. The whole process is seems like it is going to be a pain and I have full insurance. The insurance company wants to say that the hospital I visited is outside of my coverage so that the deductible will be higher. On further investigation, this really just means that we have to prove that my visits to the ER were legitimate and not for something dumb.

On top of that, it seems that we have to prove that my problems were not pre-existing AND we have to keep on their case to make sure that they are paying what they are supposed to be paying.

I am thankful that I have a wonderful husband who is dealing with all of the phone conversations... he is less likely to buckle than I am.

Anyways, we are hoping that all will go well and we will only have to pay the ER co-pays, the lower deductible and the 10% of everything else (which is what my benefits say they cover)... whether or not that actually happens is another story.

It is also frustrating that I have to get my protime checked weekly because my INR levels are low ... this means a weekly $20 co-pay :(