10 and counting...Meet Samantha

Well we did it. We caved and added one more feline to our household. We're now at 10 cats and have decided thats a nice even number and there won't be any more!

Our new little girl is adorable though. Mr. V went to the vet a few days ago to pick up Moses' prescription food and in the waiting room was a small kitten in a cage with a sign saying "I need a loving home". We've seen this before and we'll often look at the kittens but we never talk about taking one of them home with us. This time though, Mr. V went over to the cage and he claims that the kitten bounced right up to him and stuck her paw out at him. He came home and took me back with him just to "visit" the kitten. Needless to say, that visit turned into us walking out of there with an 8 week old kitten. He says that she "claimed" him and I would have to agree. We've only had her for a few days, and while she's very loving and cuddly, she will go right to him if he is in the room. There have already been 2 days where she has fallen asleep on me, only to wake up and go right to him as soon as he comes home and sits down. So I guess she really did claim him :-).

Here are some pictures of our new little girl:

Murphy is GONE...at least for now...

So backing up a few months again (maybe one day I'll be able to keep this updated as things actually happen instead of posting about things 2 months after they happen), I had my final battle wih Murphy's Law...at least my final battle until Mr. V deploys again. A 7 month deployment isn't so bad right? Some military wives have to endure 15 month deployments so I figured that while it would suck, I could easily handle a 7 month deployment. Well...I handled it, but not without wanting to shoot myself, or shoot Murphy.

Just when I thought that it couldn't get any worse, it did. You would have thought that by this point I would know to never think "it can't get any worse!" Well, about 2 weeks before Mr. V came home, one of my cats got really, really sick. This wasn't just any cat either. This was Moses, my "replacement" cat for the one that I lost to leukemia 2 years ago. While I know that he could never completely replace the one that I lost, he still means so much to me because he filled the hole in my heart when little Cledus died. So out of all of my cats, this was the 2nd worst one that it could happen to (the first being my original Wendy :-)). I woke up one day and noticed that he seemed a little lethargic. This was weird, but since they sleep almost all day anyway I just waited to see what happened later on that day. That evening when I fed them all, Moses didn't come running to the food. This was odd, very odd. He always comes running when he hears the food. I searched him out and found him sleeping on my bed. I picked him up and brought him to the food where he proceeded to fall asleep with his head in the food bowl. Thats when I realized that some was REALLY wrong. I was actually talking to Mr. V online at the time so I told him I was going to take Moses to the emergency vet. I called a friend of mine who is a vet tech, and she offered to go with me. The Pet Emergency Center is 45 minutes away so I welcomed the company.

It turned out that Moses had a common problem in male cats - he had crystals in his urine, which had caused a blockage, and he needed to have his bladder drained. This was bad, but curable. The only problem was that Moses was acting completely fine until the day I noticed that something was wrong. By that point he had progressed to a stage where the problem was more severe. He stayed overnight at the PEC, and then was brought to the local vet in the morning where he spent another week. An ultrasound showed that not only did he have crystals, but he also had bladder stones, so emergency bladder surgery was preformed. During the surgery, they found urine in his abdomen, which indicated that he had a tear in his urethra. This was bad, very bad, because if that tear didn't heal, there was no chance of him surviving. There was just no way. He also had kidney levels that were off the charts and a horrible bladder infection which I guess goes without saying.

At that point the vet called me and told me that he had less than a 1% chance of survival and asked if I wanted to have him euthanized right then, since he was already out under anesthesia. Well I panicked. I freaked out. I could barely even process what she had told me because I thought that crystals were a routine problem! I never even dreamed that it could be as bad as it was! I told her no, I didn't want him put to sleep yet. I had to talk to my husband. I had to process everything she just told me and I was babysitting at the time which meant that I couldn't even be there to say goodbye to him. He wasn't even guaranteed to live past the few hours it took for me to finally get everything straightened out. But...thankfully, I DID say no. And thankfully, the vet that had taken his case was a vet who specialized in critical care. She personally didn't have the ability/knowledge to save him, but I am so thankful that she called a specialist and read some case studies. In the time it took for me to track down Mr. V in Iraq and for the lady I was babysitting for to come home, she had increased his chances of survival to 20%. I am so thankful for a good friend of mine who dropped everything she was doing to come to the vet with me at this point. I didn't know what was going to happen and I didn't want to be alone.

At this point the vet told me his chances of survival had increased but he was far, far away from being out of the woods yet. I didn't want to have him put to sleep when I wasn't there to say goodbye earlier, but I also didn't want him to suffer, so I asked her to tell me the truth and if she thought that I just needed to have it done. She said that while things were still really, really bad, she didn't think it was time to give up hope yet. That was all it took for me to say "do whatever needs to be done."

So to make a long story short, after a week in the hospital hooked up to a catheter and IVs, his urethra tear healed. His bladder cleared up and the crystals disappeared. Unfortunately, he now had a nasty infection to fight off. Between his kidneys and his bladder he was a mess. Once the urethra tear healed (which in itself is apparently something close to a miracle!), his biggest problem was the infection. If it didn't go away, it would kill him.. 2 months, 4 rounds of antibiotics and several thousands of dollars later, I took Moses in for his final checkup. That was 2 weeks ago. He recovered like a champ!! He's truly my miracle cat and I am so thankful that I said no when they asked if I wanted him euthanized right then and there. I am also so thankful for the vet who took the time to really research his case and to go out of her way to help him. Moses will have to eat a prescription food for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, due to the severity of what happened to him, I was told that he isn't likely to survive this if it happens again. Thankfully, the food should prevent it from happening again. As much as I wanted to deny that he was really sick, I also have to admit that I wasn't sure that this day would come. Each re-check that he had made me so nervous because it took so long to get completely good news. But the last one was good. My Moses is a fighter and hopefully he'll be around for many, many more years :-).

So let's recap:

In the 7 months that Mr. V was gone:

~A shelf fell down in the closet. And of course it was the type of shelf that can't just be replaced easily, it needs to be reinstalled. Needless to say, the closet held all of Mr. V's clothes so I decided to completely ignore that one until he got home.

~Our lawnmower didn't work, which led to 2 foot high grass (call me stupid but I wouldn't even begin to know how to buy a lawnmower), so finally a neighbor took pity on me and mowed half of my front lawn. He sent his son over to mow the rest, and a friend's husband spent 3 days untangling the jungle in my backyard. Needless to say, this was the perfect time for Washington to have a drought. I know a lot of people were freaking out about the lack of rain. But for me, that meant dead grass. Dead grass doesn't grow so after the neighbor and the friend's husband took pity on me, my lawn stayed dead until about a month ago. Thankfully, Mr. V is now home to deal with it.

~I had one cat peeing all over the house, but with 9 it was impossible to figure out which one it was. Feliway diffusers are a great invention. They give off pheromones that are supposed to calm cats down. I already had 2 plugged in, but I resorted to plugging one in in every single room of the house. Thankfully, that seemed to work. It turns out that I found the cat doing the damage and he apparently suffers from separation anxiety and wasn't ok with Mr. V being gone. I can't WAIT to deal with that again!

~The system failure light came on in my car, followed by the maintenance required light. My car wasn't scheduled for any maintenance so this was confusing. 2 months later my car battery died as I was getting onto a ferry. It didn't just run out and need to be jump started. It died. Thankfully, the ferry workers were able to get it started to at least get me back home. I still have no idea if thats why my maintenance required light came on, but I do know that your battery dying right as the ferry is starting to load, isn't a good thing.

~Our dishwasher died. I don't think I need to explain the annoyance about that! I didn't get a new one until Mr. V came home because to save money, he wanted to be the one to install it. So I spent 6 months washing dishes by hand. I realize this isn't an extreme tragedy, but I hate washing dishes, so this really sucked for me.

~My dryer started making a screeching sound but it appeared that it was going to hold out for me. Then 3 weeks before Mr. V came home, it died. Not a huge deal right? I can line dry things. However, try line drying something in a state like Washington. Even hanging in my garage, which is dry, my clothes wouldn't dry because of all the humidity and moisture in the air. Then after Mr. V came home and we bought a new one, it wasn't delivered to us until 3 weeks later (all of their dryers were out of stock). Towels and jeans get awfully crunchy when you can't dry them in a dryer or hang them in the nice spring air!

~The cat that I was babysitting for a friend of mine for the length of the deployment developed a hernia.

~I started driving Mr. V's car because by the time my battery died I felt so drained that I just didn't want to deal with it. I decided to drive his car until he came home only to have it start making an obnoxious clanking sound underneath it. When I took it to a mechanic he informed me that I was absolutely NOT going to drive out of his parking lot without a complete set of new tires because apparently the tires that I had were so worn that they were dangerous. When I told Mr. V this he said "Oh yeah, I've known since Jacksonville that I needed new tires." Thanks Mr. V! By that point we had only been out of Jacksonville for a YEAR!! That would have been helpful to know. Needless to say, I got new tires, but the source of the clanking sound was never found. Amazingly, once Mr. V came home, the sound disappeared. Grrrr.

~2 lights burnt out in the living room. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but these lights are the ONLY lights in the house that aren't standard sized. When we first moved here it took Mr. V 2 months to finally find the correct size light bulb. It took me a few tries too.

~The hose broke. I didn't even know that could happen, but apparently a hose left in the heat can form bubbles that create a thin spot, which creates a pinprick sized hole. Several of these pin prick holes make for a useless hose. This is a big deal when I need to hose out and scrub down litter boxes once a week. Thankfully, buying a new hose is an easy task.

~Our sink clogged and it took hours and lots and lots of draino to unclog it. It took a lot of self control to not throw up while that was going on. Its also hard to prevent cats from drinking the standing water, but I wasn't about to deal with draino poisoning. I think that was the night that I finally broke down and cried my eyes out.

~We got termites. I don't think I need to explain why thats a bad thing!

~And finally, there was Moses.

I can't wait to see what goes wrong the next time he deploys!

Edited to add: My grandma also died. I don't even know how I managed to forget that when I was writing this.

New Year's Resolution

I was once an organized person. I was always a pack rat but I was organized. Then I met and married someone who is an even larger pack rat than I am. Then he went to Iraq for 7 months and all hell broke loose around the house. Aside from the previous blogs that I wrote about everything going wrong while he was gone, the deployment came to an end with even more things going wrong! Needless to say, my once wonderful organizational skills sort of disappeared.

My lack of organization has been stressing me out to no end, so while I don't usually make New Year's resolution's (because let's face it, I would never stick with them), this year I did and I vow that I will stick with it!

While browsing a military wives message board, I came across a post that someone wrote about a website called Motivated Moms. The post had been responded to by many, many people and the entire thread went on for 3 pages. Every single response to the post was about how wonderful this website it, and how it helped them keep their house clean and organized.

Basically, what it is, is a chore list. You do have to pay for it - $8 to download and save it, but people were raving about this site, claiming it was the best $8 they ever spent. Since the site is obviously directed towards moms, some people asked whether or not someone without children would benefit from it and the answer was yes. So I checked out the site and found out that I agree with everyone who loves this site.

The Motivated Moms Chore Planner is a day by day list of chores that takes you through the entire year. It gives you tasks so that you accomplish something every day, but you aren't overworking yourself either. If done correctly, it leaves plenty of time to have to yourself. It also seems to work well for people who work full time.

So I bought it. And I love it. Not only does it have "normal" chores on it (vacuuming, mopping, cleaning toilets) but it also has things on it like "clean outdoor garbage cans". Now thats something that I may have thought about doing in passing, but let's be honest, I never would have done it. (and even now, I still didn't do it. I gave that chore to Mr. V.) It also splits up the chores so that you clean the toilets one day, and the bathtub on another day. The point is that you will be doing something every day, but your house should never be disorganized or dirty if you follow the list correctly (and you can switch days around - for instance, it said to clean the garbage can on Wednesday, but our trash goes out on Thursday so it was cleaned on Thursday instead). It even includes things such as "prepare gifts and cards for February". And as for my lack of children, I do have pets so I change anything that says "child" to "pet". For example, each week it says "clip children's nails" so to me that translates into "clip cat's nails".

My reason for this blog is just to share this with anyone who is in desperate need of organization. I am thrilled that someone posted it on a message board so now I feel compelled to share it too. Heck, even if you're already organized, this would still be a huge destressor for me because I hate feeling like I haven't finished doing everything. By following the list, I don't feel that way because even though I know I haven't cleaned the stove, thats ok, because its on the list for tomorrow.

So check it out! I was very surprised at how useful and wonderful this was and I now have to agree with everyone who has said its the best $8 they ever spent.

Motivated Moms Chore Planner

Homecoming!

As my good friend Alice pointed out to me this morning, its been a REALLY long time since I updated this blog. Life has been pretty hectic lately, but its finally hectic in a good way.

After 7 months of things breaking and going wrong, while I suffered through the wrath of Murphy by myself, Mr. V is FINALLY home from Iraq!!! He actually got home at the beginning of the month and life has been a whirlwind since then.

After his return date and time changing several times, homecoming ended up being wonderful. I had all these plans to decorate the house and have "Welcome Home" signs hung up for him, but I'm sad to say that didn't happen. He was originally supposed to arrive home on a Thursday morning. Then it chanegd to Wednesday at 8:30pm. I babysat on Wednesday morning and assumed that I had several hours after I got home to decorate the house, but nope! That morning, while I was babysitting I got several phone calls from the CO's wife. The first one changed his arrival time to 6:30pm. The next one changed it to 5:00pm. The finally one changed it to 4:30pm. At this point I realized that by the time I was done babysitting I had just enough time to take a shower and rush off to the hanger where his plane would be arriving. I had just enough time to throw a wooden P3 with his name and squadron on it, that I bought at a recent OSCWI boutique, on a nail on the outside of our house. Flags and "Welcome Home" signs will have to be stored to use after the next deployment.

So after a quick shower, some primping and some panic because he hadn't seen me in 7 months, I rushed out of the house. Halfway to base I realized I wasn't wearing my wedding rings (I take them off when I shower) so I had to turn around and race back home because I wasn't about to great my husband after 7 months, with no wedding rings on my finger.

Homecoming was great! The only thing that sucked was that even though the plane arrived at 4:30, it was already completely dark outside. It would have been nice to get some nicer pictures of the plane he arrived on, and everyone walking off the plane, and some nicer outdoor pictures, but I have to just be happy with the nighttime pictures that I got.

(Opening the hanger doors)
(the plane they arrived home on)

(He's back!)

(he gave me some chocolate that he bought in Germany because it had cute kittens on the box)

(I loved my box of kitten chocolate :-))

I spoke too soon...

Remember the 3 cats that I wrote about in the post directly beneath this one? Yep. I spoke too soon. I don't have 3 more cats. I have 6 more cats. I'm hoping that number stops at 6, and as of right now, I'm 99% sure that it does. Last night I decided to try to figure out what the heck is going on in my backyard. My yard is completely fenced in by the way, which makes it a little more interesting to me because they guys (or their mother) had to find their way over the fence to find my shed in the first place. While jumping over a fence isn't exactly hard for the average cat, I still don't completely understand why they chose MY fence to jump over.

So last night was observation time for me. I turned on a light in the backyard and turned off the lights in my living room. Then I sat at the window like a crazy cat lady, for almost 2 hours, watching the show outside. In this time, the 3 original cats appeared. Then a brown and white tabby appeared. Then another black and white one appeared, and then another black and white one. All of them were eating the food I left out for them and all of them were playing with each other. The little tabby is the only one who looks a little different. They all have different distinct markings, but they are all black and white, so I'm not sure where the brown tabby came from. I know he could easily be from the same litter, but I just always think its cute and amusing when there is that one odd one out (like my little calico from the litter I fostered).

So as I watched, this is what I figured out:

First, they know my backyard. They were way too comfortable running around, jumping on things, and falling asleep in the middle of the yard to NOT know the yard. I guess the reality is, I never looked at my backyard in the dark, and that seems to be when they come out and play.

Second, most of them are young, so while they could easily be feral, I've managed to tame a few young ferals already. Its hard and it requires a lot of work and patience, but I am thinking that if I can work with them, I MIGHT be able to get them friendly enough for people to want to adopt them. That might be wishful thinking on my part, but one of my ferals is a total snuggly attention whore now and she was just plain mean and nasty when I first brought her in the house.

From what I can tell, it appears that there are 4 young ones, maybe 5 or 6 months old, and 2 full grown ones. However, the larger ones can easily be the same age, just bigger cats. But it was the 2 large ones that sat in front of my shed and watched the 4 young ones play, so thats what makes me think they might be a little older. They weren't acting like kittens, but who knows, maybe they just weren't in the mood to play.

On a positive note, I also solved a scary mystery last night. For several months now I have laid in bed listening to what sounded like someone trying to break into my house through the roof. Actually, thats just what my wandering mind thought it sounded like when I was alone and scared. What it actually sounded like was raccoons running on the roof. If you're wondering how I know what raccoons on the roof sound like, they used to run on the roof of my house all the time in New Jersey. I know that there are raccoons on Whidbey Island, but I've never seen them anywhere near my house, so that explanation wasn't sitting completely right with me. I spent several nights completely freaked out by the noises on my roof. Well...as of yesterday I now know what the sounds are. There aren't raccoons running on my roof. There are CATS running on my roof!!! We have a tree with great climbing branches that sits pretty close to the house, and as I watched last night, the cats would run up in to this tree, jump from branch to branch, and then occasionally jump from the branch to the roof!! So it was quite a relief to hear the scary sound immediately after I saw a cat jump on the roof, so thankfully that mystery is solved. I guess no one is trying to break in, and I'm not being stalked by rabid raccoons. I am, however, being stalked by every stray cat in the world.

So the conclusion I reached? Perhaps I should make a better effort to pay attention to my backyard after the sun goes down. Maybe then I would have noticed an entire family of cats living in my backyard for the past few months.

It Figures...

I have 3 more cats.

There was once a time when stray cats stayed far, far away from me. I was a rabbit person my whole life. I wasn't particularly fond of cats in general and I never had a dog. I just had rabbits growing up. Then my roommate found a stray cat, handed her to me, and it all went downhill from there!

Now they flock to me - ferals and strays. Suddenly after years of not caring about cats, I now seem to have a sign on my head that says "all cats are welcome here!"

So yes, I have 3 more cats. Apparently they live under the shed in my backyard. A few weeks ago I saw 3 cats in the backyard. This wasn't highly unusual because lots of people around here have outdoor cats and they tend to wander into other people's yards. What WAS unusual, was that they all looked the same, as if they were from the same litter, AND when I opened the door and scared them, they all ran right under the shed - like they knew it was there. I would have thought that if they were just playing in the yard, they would have sniffed around the shed a little and then went under it. But nope. They knew exactly where the hole was to fit under it.

Then so many other things started happening in my life (have I mentioned I can't wait for this deployment to be over? I'm so scatterbrained and stressed, and I wasn't like this before Mr. V left. I just can't get myself organized.), so I kind of forgot about the cats under the shed.

Fast forward to a few days ago. My friend stopped by to drop something off and she saw something run across my backyard, and she thought it was a cat. It was dusk so it was hard to see, but she said it looked like it ran under the shed. Thats when I remembered the shed cats! So that night I put some food out next to the shed. My plan was to see if they came out from underneath it, and they did. 2 of them. Within 2 minutes of me putting the food out, there they were. I didn't see them come from the shed, but I would think that if they came from a different yard they would have taken more than 2 minutes to find that food. Then they inhaled the food. So they were obviously hungry. Eventually, these 2 disappeared back under the shed. Last night I put food out for them again, but I didn't see them at all. Then this morning I woke up, looked out the window and saw 3 cats frolicking in my backyard, and the food bowl is empty. I say "frolicking" because thats exactly what they were doing. They weren't just casually strolling through my backyard. They were playing in it like they owned it. And then, they ran back under the shed.

Sooooo great! I apparently have 3 cats living in my backyard. I don't know where they came from or how long they have been there. I don't know if they are strays or ferals, but my next step is to get them spayed and/or neutered because as much as I love cats, the last thing I need is a litter of kittens in my backyard along with these 3 cats. So out comes the feral cat trap! Wish me luck on this and cross your fingers that they are friendly. If they are friendly, then maybe I can find homes for them. If they aren't, then it looks like they are going to be trapped, neutered and released right back into my backyard. (and if anyone is wondering why, when you do TNR, they tell you that you have to release them back where you found them. You can't just relocate them because that confuses the cat and can ultimitely be bad for it in the long run.)

So seriously, why do they always find me? There are plenty of houses in this neighborhood, but they found MY shed. Why??

Goodbye to a Great Woman

On Tuesday, October 13, my Grandma "Spring" died. She was 91 years old and died peacefully in her sleep. We all knew this day was coming, but considering the fact that she was fairly healthy for her age, it was still a bit of a shock. Her mind was starting to deteriorate but her body was healthy (or as healthy as it could be for 91 years).

The whole funeral experience was an interesting one. I haven't had to deal with a lot of death in my life, so in general, death is really hard for me. When I was 6, my Great Grandma died, but I barely remember that. When I was a sophomore in college, my Grandpa died, but beyond that, no one close to me has died.

So 2 weeks ago I flew home to New Jersey to say a final goodbye to my Grandma.

It was an odd trip home because it was obviously for a sad reason, but at the same time, I can't even remember when the majority of my family has been together. Most of the family lives in New Jersey, but I have aunts, uncles, cousins and 2nd cousins scattered around in Georgia, Ohio, and Western NJ (which isn't really that far from where I grew up, but for some reason they were never around us much). For various different reasons, it wasn't possible for the whole family to be there, but most of us showed up which was nice. I am the 2nd oldest of 13 cousins (and the oldest is 14 years older than me), so up until recently, all of my cousins still seemed like babies to me. Only a few weeks ago I realized that one of my best friends is actually younger than one of my cousins, and she's married and has a baby. That was sort of a wake up call when it came to my "baby" cousins not being babies anymore. So that fact alone made for some interesting times while I was home. It was the first time I've ever sat around drinking beer with my cousins, and the night before we all went home, we all just stayed up late talking about life. It all sounds like simple, minor things, but they were sort of special moments to me because I've never had the opportunity to be that close with my cousins. Family wise, we were close, but when I'm 8 and the next oldest cousin is 4, that makes for a large age gap. But now at 28 and 24, we've become equals, and I love that.

Before I ramble on and on about my cousins, I'll get back to the funeral. My Grandma was an amazing woman, and I think everyone in my family knew this, but it wasn't until the funeral that we REALLY seemed to understand this. Its sad to me that so much was taken for granted, and that we never had the chance to really appreciate her. From the moment that she had her first child, my Grandma was never alone. Looking back now, she lived her entire life for other people, and it just seems so rare to know a person like that.

Grandma has 6 children. Her oldest 2 sons were drafted and sent to Vietnam. My Uncle Ralph met and married a Vietnamese woman that he met while he was over there. When he married her, she had a 7 year old daughter, who my uncle adopted as his own daughter. However, my uncle decided to make the Army his career, so when he came home from Vietnam for good, he didn't actually come "home". He moved to Hawaii, and my Grandma and Grandpa moved to Hawaii too. She moved there to take care of her new adopted Granddaughter. I'm not clear on all of the details as to what happened next, but I do know that at some point, my Grandparents left Hawaii, and my uncle dropped his new daughter off to live with them. Uncle Ralph may have adopted my cousin, but he never raised her. My Grandparents did. Grandma welcomed her into the family as a 7th child, and to this day, Julie refers to my aunts and uncles by their first names, not as "aunt" and "uncle" because she was raised with them as a sibling. Julie ended up living with my grandparents until she was 35, which is when she finally moved out and got married.

Within just a few weeks of each other, my cousin prepared to move out, as my aunt prepared to move in. I don't remember the exact time frame, but it was close - probably about 3 weeks. My Aunt ran from an abusive husband in Texas, drove through the night and ended up in New Jersey with 3 kids and no place to go. So 3 weeks before Julie moved out, my Aunt Bridget moved in. Aunt Bridget still lives in the house today. So couple this with the fact that my Grandma not only moved to Hawaii for several months, but she also moved to Texas when my cousin Colton was born, Georgia when my cousins Garrett and Brian were born, and she babysat me and 5 of my other cousins - every day for years, when did this lady have any time to herself? The short answer is that she didn't. But she never complained. She smiled every day! She took care of me and all of my cousins when we were sick. She came to every graduation, dance recital, soccer game, etc that she could. She did everything for her own children when they were growing up, and then she did everything for her grandchildren. She even made sure to never forget one grandchild. When I was 2 my Aunt had a baby girl, Caitlin, who didn't live past the day she was born. There may be 13 living cousins, but if you asked my Grandma she would always say that she had 14 grandchildren. She always made sure, that noone ever forgot about Caitlin. My cousin Julie now has 2 children of her own, which means that Grandma had become a great-grandma. Even in her last years, she lived for those 2 kids. I think the reality of that hit me when I saw my cousin's 6 year old daughter crying her eyes out at the funeral. That really hit me hard because when I was 6, I don't remember much about my great-grandmother. I vaguely remember her dying, but I know that I didn't cry at her funeral, or even care that much. Basically, I just didn't know her and as a 6 year old, I had no reason to be upset and I really didn't understand what was going on. But Jocelyn understood that she was losing her great-grandmother and that fact alone made me realize just how involved my grandma was in all of our lives. If she had the ability to touch a 6 year old like that, especially since the last 6 years of her life were spent slowly getting alzheimer's, then she must have been an amazing woman.

The priest at her funeral told us that God rewarded my grandma with a peaceful death. He said something along the lines of "Her life was spent doing nothing for herself and everything for others, and God rewarded her by making her last moments simple and peaceful". I think that was the point when I really started crying. Grandma did deserve to be rewarded, and I think that all of us wish that we had appreciated her more when she was alive. It makes me sad to think that she might not know how much we all loved her, but I hope that she does know.

One testament to the fact that she was so loved and so appreciated was the response that my aunt got for her viewing. My aunt wanted to make a picture collage so she asked everyone to contribute pictures. The response she got was so overwhelming that instead of one picture collage, we ended up with close to 20. When my aunt realized we all had tons of pictures, she asked us all to create our own collages. I had a lot of fun going through all of my old photo albums to find pictures, so I thought I'd post the ones I ended up using for my collage. Sadly, I don't have many pictures at all from the last years of her life, and I wish I did. I wish I had been around more, but knowing that it wouldn't have mattered does make me feel good. I know my Grandma loved us all, but I don't think she ever had a chance to really miss us all since there were always so many people around and so many people to take care of! She truly was a remarkable woman.

I know that I will always miss her, but now Grandma is with my Grandpa, her husband, who died 9 years before her, also peacefully in his sleep. She's also finally with Caitlin, the granddaughter she never got to know. It makes me happy to know that, especially after going through her stuff after the funeral. Someone had gone through all of her photo albums and distrubted pictures to everyone. In a pile of pictures that my dad ended up with, I found a picture of all 13 grandchildren. Its actually the only picture that exists of all 13 of us and it was taken about 12 years ago. On the back of the picture Grandma had labeled it with all of our names, and at the top of that she had drawn a small angel and wrote "Caitlin" next to it. I always knew that she never excluded Caitlin from anything, but seeing that on the back of the picture made me cry. Its the only picture of all of her grandkids, and she even made sure that Caitlin was included in that picture. Now she can finally be with Caitlin :-).

Feel free to laugh at my middle school awkwardness and my general growing up awkwardness from these pictures. I just wanted to post them because they were my favorite pictures out of all the ones I had and these are what my collage was made up of.

(My christening)

(Not sure how old I am here but thats little Brooklet with Aunt Aggi and Grandma)

(this is one of my favorite pictures of me with Grandma)

(with both sets of Grandparents)

(Grandma and me)

(both sets of Grandparents again)

(Grandma and Grandpa went with Aunt Aggi, Uncle Bernt, Aunt Bridget, me, Erik, Evan, Alex and Brianna to Storybook Land)

(75th Birthday - with their kids)

(75th birthday with their kids and grandkids)

(surprise 50th anniversary party!)

(surprise 50th anniversary party - the ONLY time the entire family has ever been together at the same time!)

(me with Grandma and Grandpa at their 50th anniversary party)

(Grandma and Grandpa with the 13 grandkids - the only picture of the 13 grandkids)

(me, Aunt Aggi, Grandma and CJ at Christmas one year)

(Grandma and her girls - her daughters and granddaughters - New Year's Day 2000)

(Grandma and Grandpa with their grandchildren - New Year's Day 2000)

(Grandma and Grandpa with their children, children's spouses and grandchildren - New Year's Day 2000)

(Grandma and me at Christmas one year)

(Grandma, me and Dad)

(Grandma and her Grandchildren)

(Grandma and her girls)

(Grandma "Spring")

(Grandma Roberto, Cousin Julie and Grandma "Spring")