just two

We meet at Nina's Cafe on Selby at 6:45 in the morning.

Sometimes we are all there but sometimes there is just two of us. We drink coffee or tea and start the morning the best way I know how - just talking and catching up on one anothers busy lives.

To my dear friend Pagie - thank you for this morning, it is such a pleasure to start my day with you!

sides of my

I have a thing about feet.

I don't like dirty feet. I don't like my feet to touch the ground without some sort of protective layer - socks, shoes, or slippers - it doesn't matter. I just need to have something between me and a dirty dirty floor. I also have a hard time with mismatched socks. It just doesn't make sense to me. Anyway....

It is very hard for me to shower in other people's showers and shower when I go camping. Camp showers are scary. If I forget my shower flip flops I usually have a panic attack. Anyway, I have a hard time in other people's showers. I tend to stand on just the sides of my feet, that way not my entire foot is touching that foreign surface. It makes me too nervous to relax my feet, I just cannot do it (believe me, I have tried).

So last night I had a nightmare of all nightmares. I had to shower in a gross disgusting community shower that had a rotten wooden floor moldy shower curtain and everything was covered in mud. Not nice spa mud but old gross slimy mud.

I woke up in a sweat. It was horrible.

art shanty

Last weekend Jake and I went out to a frozen lake to support our friend Joel's Art Shanty. For some reason no one told me it was really going to be on a frozen lake.

I wore heels.

on and on

I watched the Golden Globes.

Reese.
Hilary.
Ben and Jennifer.
Jennifer and Marc.
P-Diddy.
JayZ.
Beyonce.

This list could go on and on because they were all there last night.

In my sun room, on my little TV - just them and me.

Ryan Seacrest is the only annoying part of it all....I think he peed his pants during his Brad and Angelina interview.

stored nicely

Jake and I threw our holiday tree out the window two nights ago - not really relevant to this post but I thought it was worth mentioning!

We then took everything out of our closets went to Menards to buy new closet rods and then to IKEA to buy more wooden hangers.

The apartment has been a disaster for about two days and let's face it, it still is....but at least it looks better than it did two days ago.

I am tired - of ALL the stuff I have collected, kept, hidden, and stored nicely away in hundreds and hundreds of boxes.

Why? Why do I have to keep every single letter and card and ribbon and tissue paper and mementos from my past?

BECAUSE SOMEDAY MY KIDS WILL WANT TO SEE IT.

Right?

Yeah, right.

so it begins

Mom says, "What's wrong?"

I say, "Well, Jake did my laundry today."

Mom says, "That is so sweet. So did he ruin some of your clothes?"

I say, "Well, he washed a shirt that was Dry Clean Only. He didn't read the label."

Mom says, "Oh no. It took your father a long time to start reading labels. Finally, I just said don't touch my clothes."

Mom says, "And so it begins."

always goes

This week was a hard week for me.

But we had already invited all our friends and I just didn't feel like canceling.

We were celebrating Jakes return to Minnesota!

The night was really fun - it was great having the space to have a party!

Even though we bought a new sofa, have two bedrooms and a sunroom - most of the night everyone was in the dining room - surrounding the food.

Isn't that how it always goes?


After it was all said and done I sat down and had some hot cider. It was a great party.

Adeline

On Monday morning my Grandma Adeline passed away.

Today was the funeral and I wrote this and read it aloud during the service - tears streaming down my face.



I loved asking her questions.

I especially loved hearing about when she grew up - what life was like for her as a girl, as a teenager and when she was raising my Dad.

We would pull out the old photo albums from the box at the top of her closet and sit on her couch.

She would know EVERY SINGLE person in those old black and white photos.

She would point out the family hardware store and tell me the stories of working there. She would point out her parents and her grandparents. Then the ones of my grandfather and her on their wedding day – she would tell me that she had been so young.

But my favorite photos have to be the countless arm in arm photos of the four Setran Sisters! She would turn to me and say they always posed like that.

She had stories for each photo and they would come pouring out - she had the most amazing memory.

I just kept asking questions and loved to listen to her answers.


Her house at 3009 holds many memories for me – her piano, the record player, her bedroom, the pool table, the clapping monkey, the wallpaper in the front porch. There are moments and images I will never forget about that house and the feeling it ensued when entering its doors...but there is ONE in particular that I just can’t seem to get out of my head...

It’s just me and Grandma on the balcony upstairs. She asks me if I REALLY want her to do it?

I say yes as my eyes widen with anticipation and my heart races...and then I screamed!

She had taken out her front teeth and my eyes had never seen anything scarier! I had asked and she had warned me!!!

She was the organizer, the planner, the program director and the choreographer. She took risks and laughed at her mistakes. She held her own in a room full of family and friends and usually was the one to make everyone laugh.

I will miss stopping in for visits, out of the blue phone calls, hearing how much she won at the casino, her postcards from Arizona and her lefsa. But most all I will miss her laugh.

She was a generous and incredibly thoughtful woman that I had the honor to call my Grandma.


This is what today looked like in Minnesota.

blog about

Well, there is a lot to blog about.

Jake moved in!

We bought a sofa!

Jake moved in for not just the weekend!

We are having a party on Wednesday.

Jake moved in!

Photos are coming soon.

last night in town