grandma s.

so i've been thinking about grandma s. this week...i think it was 5 years ago this past monday that she passed away. i miss her very much. so here's an "ode" to grandma:

What I Miss About Grandma S

1. I miss watching Scooby Doo with her...I was always scared of the villains and wouldn't watch it without being on her lap.
2. I miss the Grandma smell...it's silly, but no one ever smelled the same and the house just isn't the same without her. (and i don't mean smelly..she smelled great!)
3. I miss rabbit in the hole...she would cut a circle into a piece of bread, put it in a frying pan and cook an egg in the hole. I tried doing it once, but it wasn't the same.
4. I miss the full Grandma kid library...it's been mostly dismantled now. Good ol' Jake McGee and His Feet, Sport and other great books.
5. I miss watching Jeopardy with both her and Grampa.
6. I miss sleeping over and waking up to doughnuts and sugar cereal.
7. I even miss her immediately asking, "Whaddya want taped?" whenever I called.
8. I miss her care packages to me in college...they came whenever I needed them most, and she always seemed to just know when to send them. I ate that squeeze cheese on crackers all the time in the dorms!
9. I miss her waving from the kitchen window whenever we drove away.
10. I miss her just being in the house...it took a long time after she was gone to not feel that she was just in another room and that you could just go down the hall and she'd be there.
11. I miss mud milk.
12. I even miss buttermilk...yuck! It was just normal for it to be in the fridge, not that I ever drank it.
13. I miss going into the bedroom and just looking in the closet to see what cool stuff Grandma had. Dress-up!
14. I miss ravine trips.
15. I miss Grandma's laugh.
16. I miss how she let me fall asleep during a conversation with her and mom one semester after finals. she knew that it was nothing personal, and that I was just exhausted.
17. I miss how she would call Mom and vice versa. I think it's great how close they were.
18. I miss her sweaters.
19. I miss the innumerable clothing magazines always around.
20. I miss her generosity. I still wear the dresses and skirts that she bought for me as an 18 year old (although I won't fit in them much longer!).
21. I miss her doing puzzles...there was forever a puzzle on the dining room table.
22. I miss how she would let us have toys in the kitchen and run and slide on the tiles.
23. I miss the silly picnic towel in the bathroom...and the cartoon frog on the wall.
24. I miss hugging her. What great hugs!

I just miss her. I wish she could have seen my wedding and graduations...not to mention my future kids. It's a good thing that we don't know when our loved ones will be taken from us, because I never would have left on my mission if I had known that that was the last time I would see her on this earth. I wasn't ready for her to go. But I know that I'll see her again someday, and that gives me comfort.

life

so life is pretty much same old, same old right now. not much to blog about. braden is off at work now, and i'm waiting for a phone call from a potential client. it's always so much better to have them available when you call, b/c then you're prepared to say exactly what you've practiced. but when they are calling you back, you have to wait for the call and aren't as prepared. grr.

was supposed to go blackberry picking with marissa this morning, but she's not feeling well. she and her husband came over last night for fhe, except that it was mostly chatting and eating peach pie. we couldn't do it on monday, b/c braden worked the night shift that night. there's this section of blackberry bushes behind a dept. store not too far from our apt. and hey, free blackberries. but they've turned out to be quite bitter so far, so we've resolved to either make jam (with lots of sugar) or pies out of them.

i went to the huntamer (braden's mom's side) family reunion without braden last saturday b/c he had to work. braden's grandad was one of 12 siblings, but there weren't as many people there as i would've thought. i did have fun, though, since i played badminton for a while. i'd forgotten how fun that is. david and gina (braden's brother and his wife) were in town from friday until yesterday, and i went over to braden's parents on wednesday night and hung out with them.

we had an ellis family get-together on tuesday night and celebrated david, benny and sarah's birthdays. sarah is steve (braden's bro) and april's daughter and benny is devon (braden's bro) and teresa's son. braden gave david an interesting present, but i'll leave that story for braden.

in other news, we went to costco yesterday and were approached three times by random people while eating lunch. i felt like a celebrity. this lady in her 40's came up to us and asked braden to tell an older gentleman that his fly was down. she was like, "i just think it would be better coming from a man, and i don't want to embarrass him. it's not like i was looking or anything." she and her friend were directly across from us, and the old guy was diagonal and to our left. they then all proceeded to stay there way after they were done eating, which led us both to believe that something was a little off about it. braden thought it might have been a survey-type thing to see what different people do in that situation. anyway, then a few minutes after she asked, some other guy comes up to the old guy and starts chatting away, so braden's like, well, i'm not going to go over there and interrupt their conversation to be like, um, i noticed from behind you that xyzpdq. so then a guy that used to be in our current ward came up and started talking to us for a while, so we used that excuse to pretend that we'd forgotten about the zipper thing and walked away to do our shopping. oh, and the first time we were approached, a different guy came up to braden and said, you work at walmart, don't you? and when braden said no, he was like, oh, sorry, you look familiar, and then walked away. i was expecting an autograph request by the end of our meal, geez!! i'd like to hear what everyone would do in the zipper request situation...i told braden that i'd feel obligated to do it, but i certainly wouldn't want to and would try to get out of it. braden never actually agreed to do anything, though.