'Tis a gift to be simple
Dec. 30th, 2010 11:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Talked to Mom this morning. Told her I wasn't going to make the drive home. She was fine with that. I think she just wants her house to herself. She told me last night was the first good night's sleep she and Dad have had in over two weeks. She also told me there was nothing for me to do. One by one my sisters have weighed in and said it doesn't make any more sense for me to attempt to get home for the funeral than for them, really, and I was there for Gram when it counted, and that was fine.
So instead I'm seeing to the obituary reading the pastor was kind enough to say we could e-mail to her, and in between the flurry of emails that entails (I'm doing this collaboratively with my sisters) I'm cleaning my house. For New Year's, yes, but also to excavate Gram's sewing machine so I can use it for my tentative lap-quilts-for-everyone plan.
My new brainstorm is to set up a big sewing area downstairs, for the drapes and quilts and things I need to do, and then have a basket with my hand-sewing and embroidering stuff, which will keep it all relatively self-contained, so I can carry it up or down or from room to room or on trips when I go somewhere in the car, so I can actually get a lot more hand-sewing done. I may even get a little bag together as part of it, and get in the habit of bringing that to work, now that we're well and truly into the slow season there. If I'm to get any of the things done I want to, I'd better waste a lot less time.
I bought the fabric for those drapes over three years ago. More like four. Just to mention it here.
Gram's obit thing is making me cry. I'm OK with everything except when I work on it. Really I've been missing her for years; going and talking with her lately isn't at all the same as when she was really there. She always had a tendency toward keeping her opinion to herself unless asked, and once she was really advanced in age, she had a way of sitting and listening and not contributing to conversations even moreso than before. Part of it was that she had lost much of her hearing; it was worse with me because I apparently have a tendency to mumble, and she usually had no idea what I was saying.
Sometimes I try to imagine asking her things, like whether she wants me to come to her funeral, and all I can get is the characteristic shrug she used to do. "Whatever you like," she'd say. "It doesn't matter. Whatever you were going to do." Usually because she'd already made her plans and it didn't matter what you were going to do, she was just going to do what she'd already figured on, though if you were coming too she'd just be sure to set another place setting or leave room in the car.
Well, back to work. I'm determined to make significant progress on this while I wait for my sisters' emails and phone calls to come trickling in. That way I won't feel guilty for taking a day off work-- which I did because I knew I wouldn't have everything coordinated in time if I didn't. (I'd been about 60% sure I wasn't going to Troy today, but I wanted to leave that option open until the eleventh hour. My family plans ahead only when necessary-- we plan really well, but we don't finalize anything that doesn't need to be. That's sort of the only way to make the logistics of this many people actually work-- you just stay flexible, so nothing's really a crisis, it's just Plan C which you hadn't figured on but surely can accomodate.)
So instead I'm seeing to the obituary reading the pastor was kind enough to say we could e-mail to her, and in between the flurry of emails that entails (I'm doing this collaboratively with my sisters) I'm cleaning my house. For New Year's, yes, but also to excavate Gram's sewing machine so I can use it for my tentative lap-quilts-for-everyone plan.
My new brainstorm is to set up a big sewing area downstairs, for the drapes and quilts and things I need to do, and then have a basket with my hand-sewing and embroidering stuff, which will keep it all relatively self-contained, so I can carry it up or down or from room to room or on trips when I go somewhere in the car, so I can actually get a lot more hand-sewing done. I may even get a little bag together as part of it, and get in the habit of bringing that to work, now that we're well and truly into the slow season there. If I'm to get any of the things done I want to, I'd better waste a lot less time.
I bought the fabric for those drapes over three years ago. More like four. Just to mention it here.
Gram's obit thing is making me cry. I'm OK with everything except when I work on it. Really I've been missing her for years; going and talking with her lately isn't at all the same as when she was really there. She always had a tendency toward keeping her opinion to herself unless asked, and once she was really advanced in age, she had a way of sitting and listening and not contributing to conversations even moreso than before. Part of it was that she had lost much of her hearing; it was worse with me because I apparently have a tendency to mumble, and she usually had no idea what I was saying.
Sometimes I try to imagine asking her things, like whether she wants me to come to her funeral, and all I can get is the characteristic shrug she used to do. "Whatever you like," she'd say. "It doesn't matter. Whatever you were going to do." Usually because she'd already made her plans and it didn't matter what you were going to do, she was just going to do what she'd already figured on, though if you were coming too she'd just be sure to set another place setting or leave room in the car.
Well, back to work. I'm determined to make significant progress on this while I wait for my sisters' emails and phone calls to come trickling in. That way I won't feel guilty for taking a day off work-- which I did because I knew I wouldn't have everything coordinated in time if I didn't. (I'd been about 60% sure I wasn't going to Troy today, but I wanted to leave that option open until the eleventh hour. My family plans ahead only when necessary-- we plan really well, but we don't finalize anything that doesn't need to be. That's sort of the only way to make the logistics of this many people actually work-- you just stay flexible, so nothing's really a crisis, it's just Plan C which you hadn't figured on but surely can accomodate.)
