The Circle of Life

We just returned home from a weekend up in Apple Valley. Jeff's brother was having his new baby girl blessed. It was such a nice meeting. It was actually Fast Sunday for their congregation and I was impressed with the great testimonies given. Often this meeting can turn into "open mike" day and you get some rambling/irrelevant speakers who like to go about stories having not much to do with really anything..but I digress with my pet peeve. It was a great service.

So after the meeting, we got to spend time with his family which was great to visit. Before heading home, we had planned on visiting Jeff's grandma who is in the hospital with cancer. We had seen her a few weeks ago and she was doing quite well. So we figured we would be able to spend about an hour or so with her again on Monday before heading home in the early afternoon.

So we got to the hospital and we discover that she had taken a turn. I have never seen someone in any advanced stage of illness--or really anyone who we knew was dying. We arrived and she had one of Jeff's cousins there as well as two close friends. They let us know that she was at a point where she did not like being left alone and one of the friends told us that if we could stay longer-now would be the time. Since Jeff and I were there, eventually the others left and we were alone with Grandma. We would hold her hand and Jeff was wonderful with her. He even helped her when she had to throw up (sorry if that's T.M.I. but I have to give props for that. I can't even handle when my own kids do that). I have never felt so helpless watching this sweet grandma who I've always known to be happy and a bit feisty (in a good way-not that grouchy old person way) in such pain that the morphine couldn't even help. Eventually I had to leave to pick up the girls who were at my mom's while Jeff stayed with her a little longer until her friends came back in the evening.

As of yet, she is still with us, but when the doctor is asking if we have a minister to come see her... we know it won't be long. And upon reflection, I think that will be a good thing. She has a husband and son waiting for her and I know she will no longer be in pain.

It feels a little like our happy weekend meeting our new niece was a bit overshadowed by sadness of what is inevitable, but like Disney says, it's the circle of life.

What's on your Ipod?

I need your help. I'm trying to recover from a completely lazy summer where I did almost nothing healthy for myself. I'm back to my running regularly but I have to say that one of my biggest annoyances is a lame song coming on right in the middle of a big hill (for some reason Les Miserables doesn't motivate me to work harder). I have it on shuffle and I just put whatever would fit on it on when I set the thing up. I also have an older play list but I'm sick of most of those songs.

So I don't want to have to think too hard about this so I figure I'd ask you all. What songs motivate you during your workouts? Leave as many ideas as you want in your comment (and if you're just secretly stalking my blog-leave your songs anyway. I won't judge). I get so easily bored and since music is such a big motivator for me I need lots of ideas :) I like just about ALL kinds of music....

A Sweet Motivation

I really enjoy going to the temple. Yes the experience is great and peaceful and I love it. But I do have another motivation for spending a Friday night down in Santa Monica. Ditty Riese. Pam told me about this place in Westwood and I've been hooked ever since.

Even Better when you can enjoy it wth friends!!

Our Little Pet

I've always said how Natie exhibits many canine behaviors. The other night we had some people over for Jeff's Fantasy Football draft. I looked under the table and I saw this:

Yup she is eating her food like a dog.

This is the kind of pet I prefer though...I don't have to clean up "waste" in the backyard and she doesn't get hair on the furniture. And I do think she's pretty cute though she did leave crumbs all over the floor--aren't dogs supposed to clean underneath the table?

Oh Happy Day!!

It's that wonderful time of year of the year when summer must come to an end and we go back to school. It seems like summer really flew by and I was even a little sad to send them off for such a long day. I got over it real fast spending my first free morning working then going to eat and shop with Tarja.
Both girls really like their teachers and have have had a wonderful first week.

Ha Ha, I totally hijacked Kims blog. She should really use different passwords for each site. Anyways, I play an online game alot, and it is fun, and they are handing out some goodies if I post this on our blog. I play the first one. My game name is Rocinante #1216122

Unification Wars
3700AD - A space MMORPG

Jeff

Holy Smoke!!

About a month ago I woke up in the middle of the night and I swore I smelled something burning. I was so sure of it that I got up like 3 times to make sure I wasn't imagining things. After I woke Jeff up and he investigated and found nothing, we went back to bed and in the morning everything smelled fine.

So a few days ago we noticed that the receiver kept shutting off and there was that strange smell coming from it. Jeff thought his receiver was going bad. He pretended to be really sad that he was going to have to replace it if this was the case. On Sunday when we got home from church he decided to look into it. He went under the entertainment center and unplugged the power strip. Here's the result:
When he unplugged it there was a little flame that he blew out. Scary!! I would have been so sad if that entertainment center had gone up in flames. He replaced the outlet and so far, no burning smells. I'm so glad that Jeff was worried about his electronic equipment and he checked it. Otherwise, I might be posting from a hotel room.