If no one really reads this have I really gone MIA?

It has been ages since I think I did an updated post on myself, my children, my love life, my job or anything that didn’t involve my grandmother.  Its hard to believe that its been 21 days since she passed and yet I still am looking forward to her Oyster Stew on Thanksgiving…crap whos gonna make it now!  Seriously…thats why I am bummed? no its now but its definately another downfall to her not being with us anymore.  I hope someone learned the recipe! 

My son & daughter started a new daycare yesterday and to tie this in to my grandma for the first time in his life my son couldn’t stop saying her name.  He kept calling his new daycare lady by her (my grandma) name.  It’s wierd….he once asked my grandma “your gonna die” it was on her 4th birthday….i quickly closed his mouth out of embarrasment…but apparently (if you read the blog about her death) she really knew she was going to in fact…die. 

Anyways back to the kids: so far daycare is good…expensive, but good.  They are happy there and its not far from home.  My daughter starts 2nd grade next week and its hard to believe that i have a second grader…WOW.  If only I had the $$$ i would put my son in preschool!!!

Speaking of money…yeah there is none of that, what a shocker huh??

I am supposedly getting a three day break from the kids this labor day weekend…told the b/f several weeks ago that i wanted to go camping and he said he’d take care of it…he hasn’t   what a slacker…and as for “us”….whatever.  He started at the new store last week and things have been a little crazy and well you know i just feel like i am #5 (if i am that lucky) on his list of priorities….i mean after a year i should be like #3 at least right?  I dunno where this is gonna go anymore and for someone who (me) is ready to find someone to really possibly have another kid with…yeah not looking good which sucks cuz yeah you guessed it I LOVE HIM…blah.  I know he loves me but there are times (lots of them) that I still feel that I am “just there” for him…you know whenever he needs me and that i am not really a part of his life.  I know what your thinking “Talk to him” well i have and its hard to talk to someone about his feelings when he doesn’t like talking about his feelings!

thats all for now, i should work.

Valborg Marie Peterson 1937-2008

The lovely woman you see on the left of this picture was born on July 4th 1937 and just left us on August 5th 2008 @ 11:23 pm.

Hard to believe that this picture was taken a year ago (Saturday August 18th 2007) and 5 months later she was diagnosed with cancer and 8 months after that she had no idea who she or any of us were.

I have never seen someone die with my own eyes other than on tv.  At 11:23 i was sitting at the end of my grandmothers bed at the U of M Hospital, my mother, father & baby sister were there with me.  My aunt Felice & Ranee were also in the room and my aunt Amber was on the phone with my aunt Dawn whose plane had just landed.  My Uncle was unfortunately on vacation in San Diego but had said his good bye on the previous Friday.  My aunt Amber got off the phone and said to her mother “Mom, Dawn’s plane has landed and Chang (Amber’s husband) is driving her here…you know he’ll get her here as quick as he can” … and with that sentence my grandma decided to take her last breaths.  It was honestly the most peaceful way to go…surrounded by her children, grandchildren and a great grand daughter still in the womb.   But now we had to decide how to tell her husband, my grandfather.  When i got to the hospital that day he was leaving to go back to Elk River.  I think a part of him knew that it was going to happen and did not want to be there for it.  We called my uncle “Kraemer” my aunt Ranee’s husband…since they live close to them we had him pick him up because the last thing we wanted was a man whose wife, love of his life and all around partner for everything…just passed away driving from Elk River to Minneapolis.  He arrived around 12:30 am …. what a sad site to see

The next several days consisted of spending time at the house and greeting all who arrived and telling them how it happened, reliving stories and looking through TONS of photo albums.  We decided to use a few laptops and put on slideshows instead of having the usual collage of pictures for the wake *was on sunday August 10th — my baby sisters birthday*.  It turned out so nice, we had about 365 pictures scanned (your neck can really hurt after going through 30 photo albums in three days trying to find the right pictures) and of course my grandpa* had a story for almost everyone of them.

I have so much to say and of course when i was asked to say something at the funeral i couldn’t think of a single thing…or anything that sounded right.  I wanted to say “did you know that she was the strongest woman I knew” “did you know that she had the best garden around” “did you know she makes the BEST oyster stew EVER”….of course they all knew that “did you know that she was the first person i saw … she delivered me”…ok not everyone knew that.  “Did you all know that she put EVERYONE before her no matter what they needed or who they were”….what an amazing woman.  The funeral was full of tears and laughter.  At one point my own mother was up singing “On Eagles Wing” and if that wasn’t enough to bring me to tears i look to my left and there is my 7 year old daughter with huge tears rolling down from her red watery eyes….i lost it there.  The minister made a comment that “Val excepted everyone into her house as if they were her own blood, she accepted all of her childrens friends, spouces and even EX spouces” —that got several chuckles, but was it ever true.  There was even one year when my moms best friends house burnt down 2 weeks before christmas…her, her husband and their 4 children lost all their pets, their belongings and their christmas.  My grandmother invited all of them out to her house for christmas eve dinner with us and bought them all gifts….truely a remarkable woman.  Her place seemed to be the “meet me and swap kids” spot…most of us have been in rough relationships and a few have spawned children during them and it seemed that the only place where all of us could be civil and get along was at her house…so when the dads would drop off the kids she would invite them to sit down and have some food and conversation…. what a heart she had! 

Now why couldn’t i come up with any of that when i needed to….god i miss her.

*my grandpa is not my biological grandfather…but he is more of a grandfather than the real one was.  This was her second marriage but the beginning of the best part of her life with her real TRUE LOVE*

just for you about me :0

Just for you:

 

1. What is your first name? (Brandie)
2. What is your favorite food? (sushi)
3. What high school did you attend? (Chaska)
4. What is your favorite color? (Green)
5. Who is your celebrity crush? (Hayden Christensen)
6. Favorite drink? (Capt’n ginger ale)
7. Dream vacation? (Venice)
8. Favorite dessert? (White chocolate & raspberry Cheesecake)
9. What do you want to be when you grow up? (Happily married and extremely in love)
10. What do you love most in life? (the “ups”—you know instead of the “downs”)
11. One word to describe you. (chatty)
12. Your Flickr name. (mytymaker—k this one NADA came up even if i broke it apart so i cheated and google imaged it )

G-ma…final update

When I arrived to the hospital around 1:30 yesterday afternoon she was pretty much acting like a autistic child.  She did not focus on anyone and had twitches and shakes continuously.  Shortly before i got there they had given her 2 mg’s of morphine that aparently were not working.  For the next 3.5 hours she continued to shake and almost choke on her own fluids and tongue.  They decided around 4pm to reduce her IV fluid intake from 100ml/hour to 20ml/hour which help with all the fluid in her throat.  THey had continued to give her 2 mg of morphine every hour and around 4:15 she finally fell asleep.  However they didn’t have her propped up so she was choking on her tongue and having a hard time breathing.  We got the nurse to come in and prop her head up more and they provided her with oxygen through the nose just to “comfort” her and NOT to assist her breathing as she has a “do not recessitate, do not incubate”.  She has been asleep since and will probably NOT be waking up again.  They believe that as of right now her kidneys have started to fail and the rest of her body will be joining her shortly.   They are guessing that she will probably pass either this afternoon or this evening into the early morning.   That is all I have for now…. Jess….sorry for misleading you but it was easier to say that my g-ma has passed (which at this point she pretty much has) then to go into detail…especially with the exciting news that you brought me!