Dear Grandma, Today's Been a Cussing Kinda Day

Dear Grandma,

I swore twice today. Yep! Sorry. It reminds me when I heard you swear at Grandpa Don. You would call him a Jack**s when you were really mad at him. I love that you cussed sometimes too. :) Today Caleb was ridiculously... Ummm... well, just kinda "oh My H*ll!" like. I had to buckle him to his chair when he was sitting down for lunch. I had to pinch him to shake him out of his cacophony screaming when I was trying to get him to clean up the play dough mess; I mean, my face was right up to his face when I was giving him the directions! He jumped like he had no idea I had even been there. Grandma, Autism S**CKS!  Some days it steals the best of our child from us. These are hard days. And then there are days when the stars seem to align and the worst of Autism doesn't seem to exist. Just the fun parts.

Sorry, at the moment I'm drawing a blank on what those "fun parts" are. :) Let's change the subject a little. I exercised a little today. Yep! I went grocery shopping. :) Walked all 20 isles and the Pharmacy! LOL!! (Sorry, that means Laugh Out Loud. ;) Holy Cr*p though, I was so tired when I got home!! Thank Heavens for the Crock Pot meal that was waiting for us to eat when I got things put away. That has been such a blessing!!!! We have eaten SO much healthier since I took the time and energy to make those. And Smoothies for breakfast has been Awesome too!! I had more fruits and veggies in my cart today then other kinds of foods. It was Awesome!! This reminds me when we would come to your house and you would try to get us to drink your juice made from your juicer. :) :) I can still smell it! :) Carrots and Celery! Oh how you would love the blenders we have now!!!

Well, I just felt like sharing a little about our exciting day. I wonder what your life is like up there in Heaven. I imagine you're playing the organ. And humming along to the hymns. What a joy it would be to see and hear you play.

Love you Grandma,

Lena:)

Dear Grandma, Big Changes Up Ahead

Dear Grandma, (This is the first letter in a new series I will be adding to my blog.)
Last night I lay trying to fall asleep (again). How can a body scream to sleep all day and then refuse to sleep at night? But then you kind of had this problem also, didn't you? Your body just insisted that you wake up at 3AM every morning. I sure miss our daily chats on the phone. Eight years has passed since you left; and I still wonder often what you would suggest, or how you would react to some of the things happening in my life.

Anyway, back to last night. My mind was sorting through choices last night. Choices that Leif and I had to make about what our next step was going to be in our journey. His nursing scholarship contract is up in August and it opens up the whole world of nursing careers to us. So where do we go? What do we do? We had narrowed it down to 4 choices that we had been flip flopping around for the last couple of months. Our focus had mainly landed on the opportunity to do Travel Nursing as a family and HomeSchool the kids.

But Caleb has struggled so intensely in school this year; and it all really hit the fan this last week. We were doubting our ability to meet his needs and requirements through homeschooling. So we were considering moving back to Carthage and enrolling him in a school where we knew without a doubt he would have excellent help. And Leif would work as a Strike Nurse. But this would take him away from home for up to two weeks out of the month on some months. ... And that only explains two of the choices out of the four we have been working through.

As my mind became a little more foggy with sleep, I suddenly pictured Alice in Wonderland and the Cheshire Cat as she asked her famous question: "Which road do I take?" And then he goes on to explain that if you don't know where you want to go, then it doesn't really matter which road you take. I then realized that we didn't really have a certain Place that we wanted to go. We mostly just had a Way we wanted things to be. We want to take the path that will give us the most time with each other as a family.

Today at church Leif didn't end up having to teach or do anything other then ponder and participate in the Spirit of the meetings. He came to me in between my Sharing Time lessons and showed me that he had written out all of our choices and lay it all out on paper for himself. It was no coincidence that we happened to have a whole hour to ourselves to just sit and talk and weigh it all out and discuss which options brought us feelings of light against the ones that didn't. And last night's whispering of what we Really want: To be together, brought the answer to us sure and clear. We will move back to Arizona and use The Barn as our home base, Travel Nurse, and Home school.

I wonder what you would say about this Grandma. I think you would think it was neat. You did love to travel the country on road trips with Grandpa Don. You might be concerned about the kids schooling. But so are we. But in the end, I think you would cheer me on. I sure miss you! I often tell Leif I wish I had someone I could bring along with us when we go who can help me on my bad days. You would have been a fun choice. I wish my kids had the chance to get to know you. But maybe by "writing you" these letters it will give them an idea of how much your friendship meant to me and still means to me.

So Grandma, there's changes up ahead for us. But you probably already knew that. I think you're closer to us than we realize most of the time. I'll keep that in mind when times get confusing or hard. I love you. Goodnight for now.

Love, Lena