Reflections

10 years.

It's hard for me to think about the events of Sept. 11, 2001 without thinking of the events that took place on Sept. 10, 2001. That was the day my grandmother died. She was my last living grandparent, and she was a fiesty thing!

She was born Ollie Wilma Fears (and she hated her name!) on April 7, 1917 in Moore County, Tennessee. She married when she was 13, had twin boys (one of them my dad) when she was 15. Giving birth almost killed her. She had two more children, a girl and another boy. Her husband was a mean drunk, who eventually left her for her best friend. She did what she had to do to support her family, working lots of odd jobs. She remarried, but that ended in divorce as well. Eventually she married a third time, to a sweet man named Alphonso Skrocki... we called him Grandpa Al (or Grandpa Owl if you were too little to understand the difference!).

Most of my life she and Grandpa Al lived in Dearborn, Michigan, which is a suburb of Detroit. She owned her own business, selling Viviane Woodard Cosmetics and Shaklee Products. Her little shop was attached to a hair salon. I remember visiting them 2 or 3 times, and they came to visit us a couple of times as well. It was always fun when they came to visit. She would spoil us rotten, and get us stuff even if my mom said no. Once when we went to visit them, she drove us to Canada... we crossed a bridge to get there, and drove in a tunnel to get back.

In the early 1980's she and Al joined the church, and were eventually sealed in the Washington, DC temple. In the late 80's she closed her little shop, and she and Grandpa Al moved back to Tennessee. Her youngest son moved in with them as well. Al died a few years later, and then Uncle Richard passed about 18 months after that. She missed them both terribly.

The morning of Sept. 11th, I was getting myself and the kids packed up to go to my parent's house for a few days so I could be up there for the funeral, and help with whatever preparations I could. Barry called me and told me to turn on the tv. I sat there with my children all around me and cried and cried. We eventually got ourselves all packed up and on the road. As I sat around with my family that afternoon, we talked about how we now understood why Granny had been taken when she was. We could just envision her in Heaven, helping where needed.

My grandmother was a no-nonsense kind of person. She was very protective of her family.

She was an awesome cook, and I am blessed to have some of her recipes, written in her own hand.

She had a fun sense of humor, and I think I can remember her laugh most of all when I think of her.

Despite her humble beginnings, she became a world traveler, and she had a collection of towels from lots of different hotels.

She was a successful businesswoman. She had many loyal customers, and kept in contact with most of them even after she moved away.

I wish she had kept a journal.

I'm thankful that she joined the church, and was able to be sealed to her Al. That was a great comfort to all of us after her death - the realization that they were together again.

When she died, she was known as Jean Skrocki. Jean was the last name of her first husband, but she liked it better than Ollie Wilma, so she took it as her first name.

I'm grateful for the heritage she left me. I'm grateful that I was able to call her my Granny.

Meanwhile, Back on the Ranch...

Wow! I can't believe it has been 2 months since I last posted. Life has just been flat out crazy-busy lately.

Let's see... where to start?

Recovery

I really pushed too hard to recover quickly, and ended up taking longer to heal. I never thought that it would be so hard to take it easy. By weeks 3 and 4 my mind was ready to go when my body wasn't, but I couldn't stand being "lazy" anymore, so I was out and doing too much. After a trip to the doctor and him telling me to knock it off, I decided that I would listen and take it easy for the next couple of weeks. A second check-up revealed that I was getting there, but not 100% yet. Finally, by week 7 I was feeling wonderful. I learned, too, that I am a slow healer, but I can't help but wonder if I didn't hurt the process by being over-anxious.

School Started

By the time I was feeling great, it was time to go back to school and work. I shed a tear or two the first day of school. This is Josh's senior year, Kyle is now at Bob Jones, and Megan is officially a high school student. Where does the time go? Before everyone left out that morning, I had to get an official first day of school picture. Josh was being his usual helpful self, and would not cooperate! This is probably the best one out of the bunch:

What a goober!!

The start of school is always a busy time for me, and lately I have felt really grumpy at school. I hate that feeling, and I've been trying to remind myself to be happy. I've had to also remind myself to not bring those angry, irritated feelings home with me and take them out on my family. I do come home exhausted, though. I keep waiting for things to slow down, but it's not happening yet. We have a new principal this year, and he likes to keep us all hopping!

The Garden

I hate to admit that I have not taken as good of care of my garden this year as I would have liked. I kind of fell into that old trap... when I had the time to tend it, I didn't have the energy, and when I did have the energy, I didn't have the time. We planted a couple of tomato plants (Roma's and Cherries), and we got a lot of tomatoes this year. My herbs did fantastic, and the carrots, onions, peas and strawberries did ok. My poor peppers and spinach did not do well at all.

In my shade garden, something pretty funny happened. This is how it looked last year after I planted everything:

Pay special attention to the fern in the back.

Several of the plants were annuals, including the fern, so as I shopped for new plants this year, I wanted to try and find more perennials. I needed to replace the dead fern, but I couldn't find anything that I really wanted to go there. Then, it came time for surgery, and I could really did not care at all what was in that pot. I don't think I even went in the back yard for a month or more after surgery. Imagine my surprise when I did go out and found this:

Those are impatients. I had a couple of small pots of them last year, but of course they died out over the winter. They were not even right next to this big pot, so I am really perplexed as to how so many of them ended up there this year. But, they are beautiful, and a nice surprise as well!

Callings

I am so excited to be working in Young Women again. Teaching the Laurels is so much fun... and there are so few of them this time as compared to last time I taught... 5 vs. 13! I do miss my sweet Primary girls, but by this time next year, all but one or two of them will be in YW.


Odds and Ends


We don't have any kids playing soccer this year, but they are still keeping us plenty busy. Josh is in Advanced Production Drama this year, and he has practice 2-3 nights a week. Kyle and Megan both have heavy class-loads this first semester, and stay busy with homework. Both of them have much lighter loads next semester, thankfully.


Kayti is in school again on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Her last class is not over until 8:15 PM. But, this is her last semester at Calhoun... she will have her associates degree in December. She worked this summer at RFCU in the marketing dept., and they agreed to keep her on part-time through Sept. In January she will have to find more full time employment, then work and save all she can. Her plans are to head to BYU-Idaho next fall.


The kids decided they wanted to go spend the weekend with their grandparent this weekend, so they worked out all the details with Granny, and off they went. Megan is taking care of Savannah's animals while she is there, which she loves to do. Barry and I headed out to dinner on Friday night, hit a couple farmer's markets and thrift stores yesteray, then headed home to watch football yesterday afternoon. The Auburn game was a nail-biter in the end, and the BYU game made me so mad that I had to leave the house. Of course, that is when they scored and finally won the game. I jokingly told Barry that I should have left the house much sooner! Barry has to work today, and I am sitting here in a very quiet house. I started feeling like I was coming down with something yesterday, and I don't feel a whole lot better today. I've been trying to fight it with zycam, but so far it does not feel like it is working.


I am so excited for Fall to get here. I'm ready for cooler temperatures. I'm actually looking forward to the rain that is supposed to come the next few days as well. It has been too hot and dry around here lately.


I guess I have rambled enough... I think I may just go crawl back in bed for a while.