Happy Friday!

Another day in Hayesville, North Carolina, Grandma's hometown since she moved here with Harry, her second husband, around 1989 or so (not sure exactly). Today is the weekly hair appointment for a shampoo and set. I thought about getting mine done just to see what the  end result is! It's only $10!

After that we'll visit some old friends, one at a nursing home, another at the friend's home. Both will mean the perfunctory "this is our granddaughter" introduction, the sad story of grandma leaving town and heading toward her next season of life... and tears and giggles from old girls who sound like school girls. Grandma is making her farewell rounds, something my generation would do via facebook. Her way is nice but so emotional!

Yesterday there was a trip to the safe deposit box at the bank... a visit to the bookstore in town to say goodbye to a friend from DAR. They both cried. I held Grandma's enormous handbag and cried with them. I took Grandma to do early voting for a run-off election that's going on and joked around with the (very bored) poll workers. We watched The Five on Fox News and she seemed to be entertained by it. She made a dozen tearful phone calls to friends and family.... every now and then the story would get slightly skewed so I would help her keep the itinerary straight. We went out to dinner at a little meat and three place and had a nice meal and a nice time reminiscing about the time she lived in New York City. She has had a fabulous life, in spite of circumstances that might have dictated otherwise.

I also spent a good bit of time accumulating and scanning pictures and documents. My laptop doesn't have the internet access, I'm using Uncle Bruce's for that and I didn't want to save the pictures to his laptop so I can't share them with you until Saturday when I get home and have access to the internet on MY computer. It's actually worked out fine that way. I'm missing playing my computer games and the internet connection is... eh... not great... but it's ok. Anyways...the pictures are fabulous, my great-grandfather as a boy, my great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother on my grandma's side, just lots of great old stuff. And when I say "old"... one was a tintype!

I made an awesome pot of really strong caffeinated hazelnut coffee that I found in her refrigeration. She can't have caffeine so she saved the extra coffee for me to heat up this morning. I'm not a fan of the second day coffee... but, it's her place and I want her to still feel like she has control over things. She keeps saying, "well, the children will handle this...and the children will handle that..." and she definitely defers, rightfully so, to the "children" (who are all in their sixties)... but there are times she has said, "I wonder if they'll let me take both of my winter coats... " and such.... and I know she has some fear of loss of control over her life.

Going through the archives of her life, the geneaology information, the old photos and documents and cards and letters that she has painstakingly saved for years, and years and years. She has letters that were sent to her mother before she married her father. I didn't take them out or try to read them because I worry that the paper would be too fragile. She has saved so many treasures and she knows that her treasures may be another man's trash... and that she may not have room for these things in her new place. She got rid of some things yesterday but the process was painful. I carried them to right beside the trash can to give her one more chance to change her mind. I just went through this same process myself... do I pack these things away in storage and pay to save my jr. high newsletter or Cody's valentines from 3rd grade....it's hard.

My back is not doing well at all. There are too many hard surfaces and I can tell the discs are being compressed. I've done a lot of walking, picking things up, sitting on hard surfaces (as I've mentioned) and just in general not giving it the TLC it needs to keep the pain at a minimum. My feet are swelling and my joints are aching but... it's a few days out of my life to give back to someone who have given so much to us as a family and who has worked tirelessly to help others in her life. It's a small, small sacrifice to make.

My mom and dad are househunting today and I'm so excited for them! Hope they find their dream home!

COFFEE Time!

Hope you have a great day!