Thunder of Wade

I’m in a much better mood today- and I’m sure everyone around me is happy about that as well. I did some work on a couple of projects last evening – including trying to make a TRON version of Gumby out of polymer clay. It didn’t work out very well, but it was fun to try and I learned from my mistakes.

People that drive at night are jerks. I know that’s a sweeping statement – so maybe it’s just people that drive near me at night that are jerks.

Funny thing I forgot to mention about the trip. When we were going to lunch in Peoria we kept seeing signs for a Crash Inspection Area. We wondered if crashes were brought to the area, if there was an unusually high number of crashes, or if it was about alien crashes. It seemed close to the river, so it might have been something with the coast guard. But I also saw a sign that seemed to indicate car crashes. We were in a hurry and didn’t check it in more detail.

Sunday morning we met up with my parents again for a quick visit with grandma. As before, she had some difficulty with conversations and kept falling asleep. We were outside a bit, but she got cold and we brought her back in to the dining room. We were just in time for the ‘special guests’ – a couple of miniature horses that visit every Sunday morning. Grandma didn’t remember seeing them before, but apparently she had told the guy that her grand-daughter would love them. My sister wasn’t the person she had been talking about, but went along with it. Right up until the horse sneezed on her. And there were chunks. She got it cleaned up and we headed into a lounge area to sit for a little while. Grandma drank some green tea that my aunt had brought – which was a good sign since for a while she wasn’t able to swallow. She kept dozing off though and it was time for us to leave. She told my sister that she “couldn’t wait to meet that new little baby of hers” – which was really good to hear. My sister isn’t due until January and isn’t showing that much – so, grandma had to have remembered on her own.

Saturday afternoon was the wedding so after a quick trip to my aunt and uncle’s to get ready, we headed to the church. We got there early and did our best to stay out of the way of the photography. My cousin looked beautiful and happy – though maybe a little dazed. I saw a bunch of relatives that I don’t normally get to see. Oh, and with my green shirt and my sister’s blue dress and scarf – I decided that we looked like algae.

On Saturday, my sister fixed shredded wheats for breakfast. Turns out I’m not much of a fan. From there, we headed out to meet up with my parents and go to visit my grandma in her nursing home. I think we were a little nervous as to what condition we’d find her in. Grandma was in her room and needed help getting into her chair. She looked and acted better than we had expected but not as good as we could have hoped. We wheeled her out to the courtyard and talked to her for a bit. She could follow some of the conversations, but had trouble starting her own. Mom and Dad helped her get up an walk a little bit – and that hit my sister and I pretty hard that she was struggling so much and that she tired out so easily. We brought her chair back over to her and helped her back inside. It was getting close to lunch time at that point so we took her to the dining room. We gave grandma a hug before we left and she said to me “You look so much like Wade” – we laughed a little at that, but it was still disconcerting.

I took Friday off to go to Illinois for my cousin’s wedding. My sister had to work a half-day, so I was going to meet up with her at her house at 12:30 and we’d go from there. I had directions and did pretty well – until I missed a critical turn. I ended up way far out of my way and had to back track. I was looking for a South street and found the North version instead. It quickly turned into a dead end – and I’ve never been so happy to fail since it meant that a quick turn around would finally put me on the right track.

We’ve got a project here at work with a launch deadline of Monday – and the folks supplying the information didn’t get anything to us until yesterday afternoon. I’m going to be out of the office on Friday, so things got pretty rough. I worked from home last night to get caught up with what they did send and I’ve got more to do today. We won’t be at 100% by Monday, but we’ll be at least ready to launch. Makes me cranky – but not much I can do about it.

I worked on a couple of projects this weekend, both origami. A few years ago, I made a shadow box with a multi-layer set of Mette rings – in orange and yellow with a blue background – that looked like the sun. I gave this to my grandmother for christmas and she really liked it. About a year ago, my aunt asked if I would make one for her and I said I would – but I was a bit hesitant about it since I don’t like to duplicate gifts like that. Plus, not long after she asked, my grandmother moved in with her and my uncle and took the sun shadow box with her. I figured that would be the end of it, but then I saw some sun flower scrapbook paper and figured that the sunflowers, done in the same style of origami, would be an excellent replacement. I cut down the paper so I could fit 4 of them in the shadow box – since she has 4 kids – and finished it up this morning. Photos to follow.

After a really rough morning on Friday, I turned it around with a swim. The pool was configured with the lanes “longways” – twice as long as I’m used to doing – but I stuck it out and did a mile. Three crawl, three backstroke, three breaststroke – then repeat. When I got done, I still felt great – like I could just keep going. But I had a meeting and I needed to get back.