Life is a mean vicious cycle – Nana Update 2

23 years ago my grandma was feeding me, changing my diapers and putting me down for naps. This weekend I did all of that stuff, but for her.

I have always heard that life was a cycle. But I never realized I would experience it firsthand.

Today my mom is in Alb. with my grandma and I just heard that she isn’t swallowing anymore. That means no more food and water.

Hospice left a book at my uncle’s house for the family to read. It was about death. I talked about how everyone made the journey differently, but the book had signs of what to expect and explained what was happening.

The books says that right now my grandma has one foot in each world and her body is preparing and withdrawing from this world. Now that she is starting not to eat and drink, the book says that she doesn’t need that sort of energy anymore. She needs more of a spiritual energy to help move on to the next world.
I guess last week she even had a conversation with my grandpa.

But she isn’t really talking to us anymore. Although I was happy that I got an I love you this weekend with a kiss and a hug. :)

I know that her time is coming and just hope and pray that my family will be strong and get through loosing the family matriarch okay.


The book says at the end, The owner is no longer in need of a heavy, non functioning vehicle.

They have entered a new city, a new life.

“Upon the Seashore”
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!"
"Gone where?"
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: "Here she comes!"
And that is dying. -- Henry Van Dyke


 

102 posts!!! Wow!

Weddingness....

http://www.honeyfund.com/wedding/jaclynandryan12062008

Here is our honeymoon registry. I am not asking you to buy us stuff...lol... but take a look at it for me and let me know what you think of it. If you see any misspellings or any other mistakes I need to fix... let me know before I send it with all the invitations. Thanks. :)


ALSO, What songs should I play at the wedding? Any ideas?



I would like a good variety so that everyone from the kids to the grandparents or from the cowboys to the doctors will get down and boogie.... lol, we have it all!

Please, please help me with some ideas! Thanks guys! :)

Update on my Nana

I spent most of Saturday with her at my Uncle's house and let me just say that she might possibly be the most stubborn as well as the toughest woman that I have ever known!

She is obviously on her last leg, with her kidneys failing, a leakage in her artery, her lungs not working to capacity and her entire body swollen with water.

But her mind, is right on freaking track. lol

She had 3 nieces fly in from Georgia to visit her. And while she was excited to see them because it has been 4 years since she'd seen them last, she was all perturbed.

'Did you tell everyone that I was dying or what?' she asked my mom when they showed up.

She told me that they all talked to much and she wished they would just leave her alone. And she told one of them that she wasn't dying and that she was proving everyone wrong.

The hospice nurse told us that she might be hanging on because she wants to make it to my wedding. The nurse told my mom to tell her that it was ok if she didn't make it that way she can let go. (damn hospice j/k) My mom was like, no way, if she wants to live, let her.

I went Saturday with the thought of telling her that no matter what happened she would still be at my wedding. She would still have a front row seat saved and if she wanted to I would save 2 seats and she could bring my grandfather with her.

All I got to was that no matter what happened she would still be sitting at the front row at my wedding and her response was, 'That's right, whether I walk in on my own or they have to wheel me in, I will be there.' and then she smiled all proud.

I am not sure how much longer her body can hang on, but I know that no matter what she is going to fight it to the end just to try and be at the wedding.

So that is my update. She was a lot more upbeat this week than she was last week, so that was good. I am going to go visit her again on Saturday so I will see how that goes.

Yogi Berra = Awesome

Blogging... lacking...

Sorry guys.

I have had a major lack of creativity and drive to blog lately.

I feel like I am on an emotional roller coaster with my grandma. One day she is terrible and we are all thinking the very worst, the next day she is a little better.

The Dr's told us over a week ago that there is pretty much nothing they can do. She is too week for Dialysis and if they put her back in the hospital, as well as if she continues on the medication that she is on right now she will have kidney failure.

There are no other options. So the Dr gave her something to get rid of her pain and we just kinda wait and see what happens... or I guess when it will happen.


This weekend I spent about 4 or 5 hours with her. I got my dress Saturday so I brought it and tried it on for her. I was happy that she at least got to see me in it, since I am kinda thinking that there is a pretty good chance she may not get to see me on my big day.

Anyway, that is what is going on. Hopefully I will get back to my old blogging self soon.

Funny stuff

Can I just say how happy I am that Tina Fey returned to Saturday Night Live to portray Sarah Palin?? lol Hilarious!

Bridesmaid Dress

Melanie and I were on the phone on and off ALL day trying to pick out her bridesmaid dress for my wedding. (Last minute, I know, but that is how we roll!)


So this is IT (Only IT is black with the ivory accent) :





THOUGHTS??


Oh and since I am sharing, here are what my invites look like. I didn't ask any one's opinion, I just bought them because I liked them! They are black and white just like this, but the reception cards and RSVP cards are red and white with the same design. :) Marking things off the list!

My Nana

“How is Nana doing?” I asked my uncle this morning. His response pinpointed it, “She’s had better years,” he said.


My grandmother is like my second mom and I know it is reciprocated because she tells everyone that I am her 5th child.

My mom, who is a teacher, had me in July and then went back to school in August. I never went to a daycare… instead I went to Grandma’s house. She took care of me every day until I went to school, the first 5 whole years of my life.

As one can imagine I grew up extremely close with my grandparents because of this. We saw each other probably every other day. We had a meal, whether it be dinner or lunch at least twice a week, if not more.

My grandma has been battled congestive heart disease for over a year now and today I would like to reflect on things I remember or learned from the 23 years I have spent hanging out with my Nana :

(Believe it or not) I remember her bathing me in her kitchen sink… she claims she did it until I couldn’t fit anymore because she didn’t want her baby to grow up!

I've watched her bake amazing Italian dishes for years, all while I sat at her counter island in her kitchen and watched her during commercials of my cartoons.

Having her put me down for a nap… but in reality she was the one that fell asleep not me.

Watching my TV shows, Lassie and Flipper in between her Soap Operas.

Listening to her amazing life story, from losing both of her parents at a young age, living and working in NYC, to meeting my grandfather, robbing the cradle and their adorable love story.

She’s taught me how to be a loving and caring person. How to stick up for your children no matter what. How to cook Italian food! How good things will happen to good people and that if you work hard you will be rewarded.

She’s taught me that if you say something you better mean it. Especially I love you.

She has shown me her and my grandpa’s secret way of saying I Love You to one another while they were with a crowd of people.

She’s taught me that we don’t need patience because we aren’t doctors! Even though she is probably one of the most patient people I know. And that it was ok to say Jackass because it is in the bible! Even though in the bible it is used in a completely different context than the way she used it, but that is the only bad word I’ve ever heard her say. Wish I could be that good.

She taught me religion. She showed me strength I didn’t think she had after her husband of almost 50 years passed away.

And best of all she has shown me a woman that I will always aspire to be like.

If you are reading this please say a little prayer for her. She needs all the prayers she can get so she can be sitting in the front row of the church at my wedding!

Volunteering…

As some of you know Soccer has been a passion of mine for YEARS (15 years to be exact).

I have played since I was 8 years old. I played AYSO when I was little, until high school where I played on my High School Varsity soccer team and I even got offered to play at Eastern, but declined after having a bitter sweet ending to my HS career.

After taking a 3 year hiatus from the sport while I went to college, I took a soccer class my senior year at UNM. I needed an elective credit and thought, what the heck. I am so glad I ended up taking the class because it helped realize how much I really missed playing soccer.

After I graduated and headed to Socorro I walked onto New Mexico Tech’s Women Soccer team. Because their school has such a limited amount of girls they desperately needed players and I was still able to play while not attending school because it was just an Alb. women’s soccer league not a college league. (Not to brag, but I was the one of the top scorers, if not the top scorer for the team in both the seasons I played with them!)

Anyway playing with Tech made me realize I still had the soccer bug that I’ve had since I was little. I just have a major passion for the sport.

When I moved to Grants the people we bought the house from told me I should coach. I was a little timid about it at first because I have never coached before. Our next door neighbors have 3 kids and the dad is in charge of the town's AYSO soccer league. We got to talking about soccer one day and he said that soccer is just getting big in Grants. He says that all the parents are the coaches, including himself, but none of the parents have ever played before so they don’t really know what they are doing. So I gave in.

My only issue was that I work every other Saturday so it would be hard for me to coach my own team since I would miss every other game, but the next door neighbor asked me to be his assistant coach for both his 11 year old son’s soccer team AND his 9 year old daughter’s soccer team.

We start tomorrow and I am soo excited to share my passion for soccer with children who, I’m sure have a passion for learning the sport. I know I did when I was their age! My coaches were like my heroes when I was a little kid and I really looked up to them. I hope my assistant coaching experiences go well and maybe next year I can coach my own team! I just hope those little kiddos don’t know more than I do!

I will keep you updated on how it goes!

Here are soccer pics... One is from my Sr. year in HS, the other is last year with NMT's soccer team Can you find me?

Bored?

Try going to the Yearbook yourself website!! It is hillarious stuff!:) You add an image of yourself and it puts it into yearbook pictures, with different hairstyles ranging from the 1950's to 2000.

http://yearbookyourself.com



Here are some of MY favorites! :)

Parvo sucks

Just shy of 2 weeks. That is how long God wanted us to keep the puppy.

2 weeks ago today we were driving down the road and saw a cute little puppy running and dragging her leash behind her as she was about to run into a busy road. We stopped and she ran right to me. Full of love and kisses. I fell in love.

The following day we introduced her to Bailey… after a bit of convincing Bailey was also in love.
How could she not be, puppy was adorable. Ryan even had a special place for her, I would catch him going outside just to sit down on a chair and pull the puppy onto his lap.

After entertaining Bailey for us during the long weekend last week, while we were in NY, Puppy got sick.

Parvo kicked in. I think that is why nobody called to claim her or why nobody was looking for their already trained, well behaved, and adorable puppy. I am betting that someone found out that she had Parvo and dumped her.

Luckily we were blessed with giving her the last 2 weeks of her life. She filled our house, yard and hearts with love. The last couple days were painful to watch, but we gave her all the love we could and I think she was very thankful for it.

Probably, if asked to do it again, you know take an adorable puppy for 2 weeks, and then have her pass away, I would never do it. But for some reason we were supposed to do it and did.

The only possible reasons or things to come out of this that I can think or are:

We found out that Bailey loves puppies and would definitely get along well with one

We’ve been disagreeing over waiting to get another dog or not… well now we have no choice. We have to wait sometime before we can get another puppy because of Parvo.




I vowed never to name her, in case we had to give her up. Well it turns out that was a good thing because we did have to give her up and a lot sooner than we should have.

RIP little girl, you will be missed!

The World Trade Center

Our first stop on our out and about NY day was to the 9/11 sight. My mom, who grew up in NY wanted to see it, so that it would be “real” to her. Her friend, a New Yorker had been avoiding making the trip there. There is a subway stop right at the scene (actually there was a subway stop that went under the towers to the buildings, but that got destroyed) To my mom and her friend it was an awful sight. The second they walked off the subway and up the stairs they looked up and started crying.






There was an obvious void in the sky. It was one of the few places in the city where you could actually see the skyline, and a pretty big chunk of it, from the ground, which is rare in NYC. For me, it took awhile to really grasp it all. I had never been to NY before, so as far as I knew this could have been what it looked like before, I didn’t know any different. They have the whole area blocked off, so you can’t see what is going on at ground zero. You can see cranes and big pieces of equipment, but that is all.

It wasn’t until we went into the church that is adjacent to the sight that it all became a little more real for me. The big trees in front of the church helped protect the church from all of the fallen debris and besides a fallen tree or two the church survived the incident unscathed. It now houses memorial displays throughout. The displays are of posters, notes, stuffed animals and such that were left behind for those lost or in support of those survived. One particularly disturbing display was one that contained all of the fallen police officers’ and fire fighters’ badges that were lost in 9/11. For me, that was a hard one. Knowing that each one of those badges belonged to someone. Someone, who more than likely, willing went into a tower trying to save a life or help rescue someone and wouldn’t come out of the rubble. Someone who risked their life on a daily basis, but never intended to become a hero. Someone with a family and someone with a future. Someone that was lost.

Even though it has been 7 years, it is hard to imagine that something like this happened to our country, our families. When I passed by the altar at the church I said a silent prayer. May God bless all the millions of people that were in some way or another affected by this horrible tragedy and help them find peace.

A New York Experience

New York, The city where they literally never sleep (bars are open until 4:30!), where tall buildings are everywhere and so is fashion and we can’t forget about people! Food is incredible, from their Italian food, their breads, to the black and white cookies or even their incredible gelato. Mmmm… to all.

Just spending some time in the city, completely opened my eyes. The buildings were hard for me to fathom. I come from NM, where I own a very long and wide over 2000 square foot house that sits on over a quarter acre of land. It was soo different for me to see all the houses that are as narrow as my 2 car garage, but three times the height of my house. They have no backyards, well they do, but they consist of a 4 foot by 4 foot concrete slab.




I had many firsts there… I had my first subway rides (my first 4 subway rides to be exact and man do those suck if you have to stand on one with no air conditioning!), my first taxi rides (Boy do they drive like maniacs!), my first black and white cookie, my first real fashion and real shopping experiences (I shopped at few stores where many famous people do! :) ) and this is all in addition to my first big city experience and my first Yankee game experience.

It was rare that people knew where or even what New Mexico was. One of our Cab drivers thanked us for not paying him in Pesos and nobody knows what tortillas are. I asked. My mom’s friend was like, what is that! But she had been to taco bell… but only once. She also hated anything spicy and couldn’t even put pepper on her food. (She is going to hate our wedding buffet… it is Mexican!)

Another thing I noticed, there isn’t a trailer park in sight (not that, that was a bad thing. ) I think it is because trailers would take up too much space in NYC…. I thought it was crazy that people own apartments! Insane and that houses are connected by a wall and they call it a house! Their very own… connected to 2 other houses by a wall… house. Just crazy.

Homeless people are a dime a dozen and have an uncanny ability to fall asleep right next to the biggest crowds of people on Times Square! * remember I have a weird homeless obsession * I even talked to a dude that had my favorite sign (unfortunately it wasn’t too creative because I’ve seen it in Alb. before, but I gave him props for being honest) It read “Why Lie, I just need a beer. Keeping it real” I gave him a thumbs up and told him thanks for keeping it real. He laughed and gave me a thumbs up back! :) lol

Anyway talk about a culture shock. I could NEVER live in NY, although I wouldn’t mind going there for a weekend just to shop in the fashion capital! When Ryan and I got back we took the dogs for a walk in the EMPTY lot (probably 10 acres, if not more) behind our house and I just stopped and looked around. I told Ryan that I was happy to be home where I don’t brush the shoulders of everyone around me, I can see the beautiful sunsets and I can look at the beautiful mountains in the distance!

On an end note,because of my NY experience I am now determined to get myself a somewhat expensive handbag and have been looking since I got back… I couldn’t make up my mind while I was there. And did you know they don’t call a purse a purse… it is a pocket book. I thought that was comical as well. Ok that is it!

The Yankees, the best team on earth.... to me.

For as far back as I can even remember I have heard about the Yankees and heard about my favorite family members attending games at Yankee Stadium. I have seen pictures of my family there and heard countless stories about the New York Yankees and their stadium.

As most of you know they are building a new stadium and this is their last season in the house that Ruth Built. My fabulous friend Dawn was able to get me tickets to see them, so we headed to NY.

Yankee Stadium was so very magical for me. I had to just stand there and take it all in and even after the game ended (which happened oh so quickly) I did not want to leave, AT ALL. I just stood there until my mom yelled at me to leave. I stood there just thinking about how many games my grandpa attended with his family, how many my mom and uncle attended and I kept thinking how blessed I was to have experienced the same thing.

Even though the Yankees did not win… I really could care less. (Abby you better tell Tyler this.) It meant much more to me to just be there, than it did if they won or lost, it was just so much bigger than that. I enjoyed every second of the game. I clapped, I danced, I screamed and I yelled, but most importantly I smiled the entire time and also got a little teary eyed from time to time. Just to be there was unimaginable.

I had a magical time and it is a magical place that I was super blessed to visit. Now I can’t wait to go to the new stadium! :) lol

NY part1

Where the hell do I begin! Ahh!

We will start with a summary and then I will got more in depth on other blogs, for things that stood out for me throughout the trip.

Friday morning, we got up and left the house at 4 in the morning. I was VERY excited. 12 hours later, we are flying over NY! :) Seeing the city, the Statue of Liberty and then the Yankee Stadiums was absolutely amazing. When we landed it still didn't seem real.

My mom's best friend (who she hasn't seen in 23 years) picked us up from the airport and also put us up in her home. After she picked us up she took us to where my mom grew up. It was amazing to see my mom run up the steps to the house she lived in for so many years, knowing she had done that countless times before. Amazingly most of her old neighbors still live there and they had a big reunion in the street.

After dinner and a lot of drinks we all went to bed. The next day was insane. We got up early and toured the whole city. We started off at the 9/11 sight, which I think I will write its own blog about later. We walked everywhere that day. We saw, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Soho where I did some shopping, The Today show, NBC experience, Times Square and many others that I can't remember. We ended with a nice dinner at Portobella's Italian restaurant and then Gelato down the street.

The next day was the New York Yankee's day. We headed to the stadium as soon as we got up and it was a very magical experience for me. This will also be its own blog that I will write later on. After the game we headed uptown, we walked by Madison Square Garden and then walked around a little more until our feet couldn't walk anymore. We ended our crazy NY tour with delivered NY style Pizza at home and then hit the sac for another day of traveling home.

I am thinking about also writing a blog about the cultural differences that I experienced. But, I am not sure I can write everything today. So stay tuned today and throughout the week I will continue my NY blogging! :)

New York....

I had soo much fun in NY this weekend that I don't think I can break it all down into one blog. (Well, I could but it would be incredibly long..)

Tomorrow I will be blogging about my trip. I can think of at LEAST 3 different blogs I could write about. But first I need some sleep. I have the day off tomorrow (It is my Labor Day since Monday is my normal day off. :) ) So, as soon as I wake up I will be typing up my weekend for you all to enjoy. Until then, go check out my pictures on Facebook or Myspace! :)

My trip to New York in 4 words:

Crowded, Amazing, Sleepless and Magical!