Tag Archives: Grandma

April 18, 2012 · 12:31 pm

Sick, busy, blah blah blah…

I’m back. Again. No, seriously, for real this time!

So remember like almost THREE WEEKS AGO when I was like “Wah wah wah I’m sick” and was largely absent. And then it was Easter, and then my grandma died :( and then I got sick AGAIN.

So, I don’t need to give excuses obviously. I was busy and sick, I couldn’t help it. But for you poor souls who are still reading this, thank you and I love you! The wake / funeral for my grandma all went okay. I miss her, but I’m glad that I still have a lot of memories of her, mostly from before her stroke years ago, which is good. Before all funeral stuff I caught some weird string of the flu and was plagued by chills, body aches, headaches, sore throat, etc. And now I’m in that stuffy nose / coughing phase, and my voice is pretty much gone. Fun!

But I am feeling better, and the honeyman assures me that if I would JUST STOP TALKING my voice will return to normal soon :) So, I feel better, there are no major events coming up right now, and I quit my (second) job at Lane Bryant! Yesterday was my last day. Yes, the coming days should be MUCH more free and relaxed. I hope to read a lot, both at work AND at home on my days off.

So, life has interrupted my virtual and bookish life HARD this month. I have not finished a book since March. This is insane. I’m still re-reading The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon, and I’m hoping to finish that in the next few days.

I’m dropping out of Alice’s The Woman in White readalong. Because it’s APRIL FUCKING 18TH and I only managed to get about 80 pages into it before life got in the way. This is a huge bummer, because I was really looking forward to all the reading and discussing and such. I’ll pick the book back up later, I want to focus on finishing TFC first.

I am still going to try to participate in Dewey’s 24-Hour Readathon on Saturday. Usually I start the readathon earlier than everyone else because it works out with my work schedule, but I think I’m actually going to start at 8 AM like every normal eastcoast person and just try to read as much as possible throughout the day. I’m working on getting my pile of books for the readathon together today, and I’ll probably do a post about that tomorrow.

So, that’s about it. I’ll talk about more interesting, fun stuff on Sunday. For now I just wanted to remind you all that I am still here and I’m alive and hopefully will be back to posting as normal. I’m gonna go make some lemon tea with honey, hoping it will soothe my throat and help get me my voice back. And then I shall READ READ READ to my little heart’s content.

~Sarah

 

 

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April 10, 2012 · 1:27 pm

My Grandma

Me & Grandma, about a decade ago. It's one of my favorite pictures with her.

 

Hey guys, so you all have seen me mention that my grandma was on hospice care. She passed away Monday (yesterday) morning. She was 91.

My grandma & I were close, at least before her stroke 5 years ago. Since then her health had been declining, and she was having a rough time walking & talking because of the stroke. She died on pancreatic cancer. I love and miss her, but a little relieved that her suffering is over now. I don’t believe in heaven or hell, but I hope there’s some sort of afterlife and that her soul can go find her husband’s (he died over 30 years ago).

Now I’m kind of busy with funeral arrangements and all that, so I won’t be online too much this week. I’ll get on twitter & comment on blogs when I can.

Thanks for understanding.

~Sarah

image

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April 8, 2012 · 5:00 am

Sarah Sunday! (And Happy Easter too)

So this isn’t really so much a SS post, because ya’ll know that I was sick, my grandma is dying, etc etc. There’s not much to update other than that.

So Happy Easter! It’s not a real important holiday for my family, but we’re still doing a little dinner today. And though Grandma’s not really aware of too much right now, I like to think that she’ll know we’re all around her and that’ll make her happy. I’m making two chicken pot pies, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, and my mom is making a ham. And I’ll stop and buy bread, salad stuff, and dessert too before heading over to my mom’s. Amanda and my little nephew L are in town, though no thanks to Amanda’s ex (L’s father) – the bastard cut my sister’s break lines and put sugar in her gas tank. DRAMA, but I hope someone beats his ass, Amanda and L could’ve really gotten hurt. My little brother drove out to pick them up last night, and though we’re all super pissed we’re going to try to enjoy the day. And I get to see my little nephew!

Anyhoo, I have a crap ton of cooking and stuff to do, so I’ll leave you with this, in the spirit of Easter:

 

 

~Sarah

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March 25, 2012 · 10:28 am

Sarah Sunday!

Good morning everybody!

Sarah update: I wanted to say thank you so much to everyone who left such sweet comments to me about my grandma in my last post. That really wasn’t my intention in that post, but you guys are all amazing and so supportive. Thank you :-)

Grandma is coming home on Monday to start hospice care, which basically means that she’s coming home in a hospital bed, and she’ll have no IV, no more hospital trips, etc. Just meds to manage any pain or discomfort that she has. When we met with the palliative care doctor last week, he said given her condition it could be weeks, maybe months. Honestly it looks like weeks, because she can’t really keep any food down. We’ve known this was coming – she was diagnosed with the pancreatic cancer in July. It definitely sucks, and there’s a whole lot of family-drama involved with it that I’m not going to go into right now. I’m just trying to focus more on Grandma now, & worry about the family drama stuff later.

So, most of this week was spent with me going to the hospital with mom to meet with the hospice care people and stuff. The weather was gorgeous earlier this week, we had some 80-degree days (in March!!), so I got outside when I could. Unfortunately it’s all rainy out now, and it’s supposed to be in the 40′s the next couple days, but it looks like winter is definitely gone here. Considering that my city has been known to get snow in April, it’s kind of a miracle that we had such a short, easy winter.

Other than the hospital trips, I didn’t really do much this week. The honeyman’s car has been giving us some trouble this week, so there’s been a lot of running around to take care of that. Plus I still need some stuff on my car fixed (not major stuff, but still), and my mom had to get a new windshield on her car this week. NOT a good time for us, car-wise. I had one shift at LB, I did some laundry, and whenever I could I hung out with the honeyman. We’ve caught up on season 8 of The Office on Hulu. I have to say, I’m surprised how much I’m still enjoying it without Steve Carrell. I thought it would suck, but it doesn’t.

Bookish update: I spent about a day and a half this week going through all of my books, and I’m not even halfway done yet. Shelf by shelf, I’ve been removing the books to wipe down the shelf, setting aside books I don’t want anymore, scanning all of the books I’m still keeping to the Book Catalogue app on my phone, double-checking to make sure they’re also all in the Microsoft Works book log I keep on the computer, and then re-shelving them according to “read” and “haven’t read yet”, and size, of course. It’s a lengthy process (especially when I have to create a book in the book app, because it’s so old and doesn’t have an ISBN), but it’s also nice to have something to focus intently on, and it reminds me why I have so many books I haven’t read yet. It makes me want to just sit there on the floor, surrounded by books, and read them ALL.

I finished A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy this week, which was good. Last night at the mall the honeyman bought me the next book, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. I’m re-reading The Fiery Cross (Outlander #5) right now. I figured re-reading one of my favorite books would be a good comfort read while I’m dealing with all this grandma stuff. I’ll probably read The Restaurant at the End of the Universe along with it, I seem to be able to read one chunky novel and one short novel together okay.

So, that’s about all the updating I have. Hope everyone has a good week!

~Sarah

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March 23, 2012 · 8:04 am

Tell me what you think.

Good morning people! As some of you may know, Bloggiesta is next weekend! Starts on March 30th. Now, I’m not 100% sure I’m going to be able to participate like I wanted to – my grandma has pancreatic cancer, and my mom is bringing her home for hospice care this week, which means the end is near. So I might be with my grandma a lot this week, spending time with her and helping out and stuff. I’m not sure how I’m going to react to all of this yet… If I’m going to be a little sad and too lazy to care about going online, or if I’ll need the distraction so I’ll be online even more than usual. Either way, my grandma is still a tough little lady, so I’m thinking that we still have a few weeks.

Anyways, so I’m going to assume that I’ll still be able to participate in Bloggiesta next weekend in some capacity. I have a few things I want to add (like a Pinterest button) and a couple other ideas, but I really want to hear from you guys!

So, if you have any suggestions for my blog, I’m all ears. Widgets to add, changes to make, improvements, something to fix, etc. Use this opportunity to tell me if there’s something you don’t like – too few reviews, too many reviews, too many non-review posts, etc. I won’t be offended, I want some real honest answers from you guys. Don’t be shy! Give me some things to mull over this week, kay?

Looking forward to hearing your ideas!

~Sarah

 

 

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November 21, 2011 · 11:03 am

Sarah Sunday… On Monday… Again!

Sorry I seem unable to actually get these posts up on Sundays anymore. Sheesh. But this weekend was annoying busy, as I’ll explain below…

Sarah update: Okay so most of last week was pretty good – I had some pretty relaxing days of playing Modern Warfare 3, cooked, etc. I went out with my mom and I bought a big-ass expensive fake Christmas tree – it’s 7.5 feet tall, and has those big fancy bristles. And I’ve also bought like $75 worth of new Christmas ornaments and stuff too, because this year I’ve decided to do a silver and blue theme (I usually do red, green, and gold). I CANNOT WAIT to decorate on Friday! Also, me and my mom went out for lunch at the Cracker Barrel and again, it’s so nice that we can just go out for lunch whenever now. I love that, my mom is awesome. And seriously, I’m so glad that I’m not really one of those families that has a ton of family drama and whatnot – most of my family is awesome. Including my grandma, even though she was a pain in my ass this weekend.

So… this past Saturday afternoon / evening after I got out of work, me and the honeyman were out running errands. My little brother had texted me earlier in the day and asked me if I could stop by around 6 to give Grandma dinner because he wanted to go to some basketball game, and I said sure. So we stopped and bought some dinner for her and just as we pulled up to their house, my mom called – my Grandma’s weekend caretaker (who only helps her with breakfast and lunch on weekends) called and said that Grandma had called her complaining about some stomach pain and she thought she needed to go to the hospital. So, I went and checked on Grandma and she didn’t really look like she was hurting, but she said it hurt bad and had been getting worse for two days (don’t know why she didn’t tell my mom before she went out of town, but whatever) and yeah. So basically we had to call and have some EMT’s check her out (I wanted to just give her a pain pill but since she’s like 91 we can’t risk anything) and they decided she had to go to Emergency. So, I rode in the ambulance with Grandma (I had Treland go because he had stuff he had to do still) and we got her checked in. I ended up having to call into work, because I was supposed to be back at First Job by 2 am and that was looking really unlikely. Of course, after the first hour she said that she wasn’t really in pain anymore, but they ordered blood work and a CAT scan and after a really long, annoying almost 13 hours they said they couldn’t find anything wrong with her and since she wasn’t in pain anymore, finally sent her home. I’m actually pretty sure that my grandma was faking it, or at least severely exaggerating a stomach cramp or something. And of course I was even more annoyed, because I had been awake since midnight on Saturday morning, and we were finally allowed to leave at like 8 am. So by the time I finally had Treland come pick me up from my grandma’s, I was absolutely exhausted. And so was Treland, since he stayed up most the night in case I needed a ride home or something. But we still had stuff to do, so I cleaned the house a bit and later in the afternoon my mom came home – with my little baby nephew L, so I went and visited him for a couple hours. And then last night I had to go to a store meeting at Second Job, which was annoying and like 3 hours long. So yeah…. I didn’t really have time for the internet yesterday. Sorry.

Also, Treland came by the hospital eventually to bring me Inheritance and some other books and my crochet stuff. He’s awesome. And I have now realized how dangerous it is to not have a book with you AT ALL TIMES. Inheritance is a massive hardcover and doesn’t fit in my new cute blue purse, so I didn’t have anything to read for like the first 5 hours of being in ER. So, as soon as I got home yesterday I went to my bookshelve and picked a little mass market book to go into my purse for emergency situations like that - I picked The Complete Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde, which is kind of short but won’t require a ton of focus, so it’s perfect. I’ll never be without reading material again. (And no, I do not think this makes a case for e-readers and they’re stupid small size. I obviously just need to buy a bigger purse, if I can find it in the same cute royal blue color that my current one is. For now, my emergency Wilde book is a genius idea.)

What else… that’s really it. Most of my time this last week and has been taken up by trying to prepare for THIS week – Amanda is coming into town on Tuesday so I need to do lots of cleaning and stuff. We finally got a futon for the spare room, so her and the baby will have a decent place to sleep finally. Thursday is Thanksgiving of course, but I have to work until 2 pm that day and then we’re all gathering my big sister Heather’s house. And yeah… it’s going to be a long, hectic week. In which I have way too little time to do anything.

OH and Heather updated and Christmas-fied my header! Isn’t it AWESOME?!!?!

Bookish update: I’m like 50 pages away from finishing Inheritance, which I’ll try to squeeze in today. Other than that, I probably won’t get much reading done until I’m back at work later in the week. Which sucks, but I’m a busy girl this week. I have a bunch of library books and stuff to get to. Also, the honeyman is reading Domestic Violets and he really doesn’t like it. Which sucks because I liked it so much, but I really should have seen it coming. He gets to pick the book we read next month, I can’t wait to see what he decides on. Oh and as you can see, the December poll is up! If you go to the previous entry here than you can read the book descriptions. So vote while you’re here, kay?

Alright folks, I got to do laundry and dishes and cleaning and such fun stuff. And I want to try to see L again before we go to game night tonight. Hopefully I’ll be on Twitter more than I have the past couple days.

Have a good week and a Happy Thanksgiving!

~Sarah

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