Mourning and Celebrations

It’s been a week of many emotions around our home.  My mother-in-law passed away from complications from Covid last Saturday.  She had been on a ventilator for almost two weeks and she just had a very, very rough time.  The silver lining in it all was that the hospital was so gracious to set up Zoom meetings for the family, as my husband lives 8 hours from them and the hospital didn’t allow visitors.  He was able to see her and visit online with his sisters.  As I am writing this, he has made the trip to Houston, TX to be there for her funeral on Tuesday.  She will surely be missed and we know she is now completely healed in her Heavenly home.  I never imagined that this awful pandemic would touch our family so deeply.

Happy Times

We also had much to be thankful for and celebrate this last week, which seems strange in the midst of loss.  Our son turned 16 and I don’t even know how he grew up so fast, but here we are.  We had a very small, “just the three of us” celebration at home Tuesday night.  All he wanted was Popeye’s chicken and an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbin’s. Ha!  So, of course, we obliged.  You only turn 16 once.

He couldn’t think of anything specific he wanted for his birthday, so we just gave him cash.  He is such a great saver of his money and I’m so glad he is learning that life skill early.  He reads online about FIRE (financially independent, retire early) and that’s his goal.  I’m rooting for him because I wish I had been that smart about money when I was his age. We also celebrated my grandmother’s 95th birthday.  How blessed am I to say at 46 years of age I still have a grandmother?  Very!  My mom planned a drive-thru celebration for her and we had cake and ice cream with our small family “quarenteam”.

Winter Weather Coming In

I’m listening to the sleet coming down pretty hard outside.  We are forecasted to get walloped with a major winter storm.  8-12 inches of snow have been predicted with temps dipping down to 3 degrees for tomorrow night.  I’m sure if any seasoned Northerners are reading this you are laughing right about now.  I live in Mississippi and we aren’t built for this.  I’m worried sick about our pipes and keeping power.  I lived through the Ice Storm of ’94 (as it is not so affectionately called here) and went without power for two weeks.  I was 20 at the time and much more adaptable.  We are all-electric, but we do have a fireplace.  We stocked up on food and I washed up everything in the house.  I’m just praying it won’t be too bad.  I will be working from home for the next two days for sure.

Speaking of work, look what came in this week!

My new book cart! We desperately needed a new one, so I picked out one with a fun color.  I know the kids will love it when it’s safe enough for them to come back to the building.  It makes me smile every time I look at it.