November

I have three drafts of started posts in my blog queue (it's so fun when I can use that word) but I've been too lazy/busy/noncommittal to finish them up and post. At least one of them is kind of a crabby rant, and now I'm in a better mood so it seems useless to button it up.

Wow, where to start? My Nonna passed away on October 28th. I was able to spend some time with her before she left us, although she was not responsive. I was honored to eulogize her at the funeral, and I plan to post it here soon, but it's a little too intense still. Her funeral mass was on Nov. 2nd, but she was buried just yesterday (her remains were flown to Italy - her wishes were to be buried beside her husband). My mom called today to tell me the funeral mass in Italy was beautiful. It has been a long couple weeks for my dad, and I'm heartbroken that he had to go through the pain of his mother's funeral twice.

I just finished up some hot cocoa and I have that awful 'milk nausea'. I'm not lactose intolerant...for some reason though, hot cocoa, though I LOVE IT, leaves me with a nasty over-full tummy feeling. I always want to vomit after cocoa. But I don't. And I still drink it...this really doesn't bode well for any sort of long term 'lifestyle' changes, does it? Wow - that food is bad for me AND makes me nauseous? Bring me more!!

Rambling. So, I was rather busy for a few days surrounding her passing. Then, when I returned to work, I had 81 e-mails and 18 voice mails. And I had been doing some work here and there from home! I'm still behind on projects, but at least I'm treading water with day-to-day business.

The following week, one of my advisees died unexpectedly. Very shocking and sad. She was a wonderful student. There's a memorial for her at 5 tomorrow, and I'd like to go...we'll see how the day goes and if Sam seems willing after I pick him up from preschool.

The next shocker was that good friends of ours are divorcing. I won't go into details. They seemed perfectly happy. They have a 3 year old daughter who is friends with Sam. Anyway, they had apparently had some problems but were working on them and progressing - or so the husband thought. The wife was apparently seeing someone recently, and he found out in an unfortunate way, and it just imploded from there. I have lots and lots to say about all of it, or rather, about such situations, but, that's another post.

The house is a little crazy, especially this week. Our projects are underway, and I am trying VERY hard to stay calm during the inevitable craziness that is construction. So far, I'm doing ok, because I know it will all come together and be great...it's just the timing that worries me. To summarize, large furniture won't clear the spiral stairs, so we haven't been able to set up our bedroom in the great-room upstairs. To solve this, we opted to have the window on one end of the great-room closed up, and replaced with a lovely door and small balcony. We will then have an egress from the second floor, as well as an easier way of getting large pieces up there.

Secondly, the window we take out will actually go into use as well: One of the bedrooms downstairs, which is our temporary master bedroom, and slated to be Sam's room, has a small and high casement window - it will be replaced with the larger window we are taking out from upstairs. Ta-da! This will brighten the room and also provide a good fire safety feature (true second egress), which makes me feel better about moving Sam into that room.

Thirdly, the plumbing in the main bath shower is done weird - so we are having that tweaked.

Fourthly, we are purchasing a storage shed from the architecture class at the college where we work. This is great, but kind of pricey (although a much better value than buying a kit from Home Depot or something like that). Because we are contributing to an educational endeavor, I am hoping that it will be tax deductible (I have to confirm this with the College Foundation). It's 8x12, with full floor, workbench, windows, bi-fold barn doors, architechtural shingles, siding, etc. So anyway, Tim has been working hard to prep and level the area where it will sit. He's moved a lot of dirt. Poor guy.

Finally, Tim has taken down 2 dead trees on the property so far. While this is a big money-saver, it scares the heck out of me. Bless his brave heart. It also makes a mess.

So, all this is great but, this is what happens in the meantime, and how my new and wonderful home goes from high-end to virtually trashtastic in just a few short days:

*Plywood in the second floor window hole. Street view. Classy.

*Carpet upstairs is pulled up and rolled back in the work area. The plumber is coming to move a heat register that would be in the way of the new door. Fun. Cause you know, it can't ever be EASY.

*Trim and molding is missing all around window in our bedroom. When Tim needs to sleep during the day, he usually props pillows in the windows for darkness. Because there's nothing to hold the pillows now, he's tacked old towels there. Oh joy.

*Same wall is marked up for cuts to fit the new window.

*Our nightstands are in the living room.

*Front porch is littered with contractor stuff. And a door. And a window.

*Tree bark and bits of branches are everywhere from aforementioned downed trees.

*A section of our fabulous fencing is down due to falling of one tree. It's not broken, but he has to do more cutting before he can put it back together. In the meantime, however, it looks broken and trashy.

*Sheetrock in my entryway is cut so plumber can access and re-work plumbing to the bathroom.

All this magic is scheduled to be finished in time for Thanksgiving, when I have 4 family house-guests arriving. We shall see. We shall see.

He had to walk there

Yesterday morning my mom and I visited my Aunt, who just lost her sister on Thanksgiving, and her husband on Monday morning. It has been a rough week for my family and especially for her. Anyway, I was reluctant to bring Sam , but my husband and my mom thought that it would be ok, and thought that people would be happy to see him. So I brought him. And they were right.
On our way to my Aunt's house I explained to Sam, "Aunt Josephine is going to be sad, she's going to be crying, so if you want to, you can give her a hug." He didn't say much, and our visit was quiet and uneventful. He looked at her a lot, but was generally shy.

On our drive back home last night, as we do at some point each day, we recapped the morning's events. This was part of our conversation:

Me:
And after Zizi Josephine's, where did we go?

Sam:
To see the train - Zee Jofeen was crying. Why she was crying?

Me:
Because she was sad.

Sam:
Why is she sad?

Me:
Um. Well because she misses someone.

Sam:
Who she misses?

Me:
She misses Uncle Joe, she misses him a lot.

Sam:
Where he go?

Me:
Well, he had to go far away.

Sam:
Where he go far away?

Me:
To a special place.

Sam:
How did he get there? Who drive him?

Me:
He didn't drive there.

Sam:
He had to walk there.

Me:
Yes, he's resting there now, at the special place.

Sam:
He is walking around there.

Me:
Yes, he's walking around.

Sam:
When he coming back?

Me:
He's not coming back, he has to stay there. That's why Zizi Josephine misses him. He's very far away.

Sam:
He is far away, walking around there.

Me:
Yes, but he is happy and soon Zizi Josephine won't be too sad anymore and she'll feel better.

Sam:
She won't be sad.


That's about the best I could do in talking about death with a two year old. I think he did better than I did.