May your heart be light...

Have yourself a Merry little Christmas...

From our house to yours - May your blessings be big and your burdens light in the coming year!

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being. - Ephesians 3:16 NIV

Just a side note - our Christmas cards are primarily virtual this year.

December is for...

a birthday

We celebrated our birthday man-child a bit late so that Savannah could join us.  We used to celebrate early so that our family who consists of many who work more during this season could be there and to give a little more time between a birthday celebration and Christmas. As you will see, pretty much everyone made it this year...so, success!

The flu has struck.  Kinsley (right) was the first to go down.

This guy had me cracking up and feeling the loss that we don't get to see Mom and Dad react to him. He shared with us a story about how he was holding a girl's hand at school.  Another kid tried to chop their arms apart, but Isaac raised his finger and used those fantastic eyelashes and in a very proper accent ordered, "Don't cut our love!"  Hysterical

As I type this, Ira is fighting through double whammy of flu and strep.  It hurts my heart that he might miss the family Christmas celebration tonight.  I would have moved the celebration to this weekend, but Jonathan says we should all go on with it.

Then there's this girl who went down second with the flu.

Surrounded by his fan club

 On Wyatt's actual birthday (which always happens during finals week), we celebrated at home with his favorite Chinese meal and strawberry rhubarb pie.  He's been trying for months to fix his Switch controller, so we replaced it.  I asked the gamers in the family for help with choosing a new controller and chose what I thought was a good one, but Wyatt wanted the game cube style controller like he had before.  He opted to keep the new one and seems to like it, but he did still have time to add the other one to a Christmas wish list.

So December = a family birthday party, finals, more finals, and did I say finals?  Then there's that other major holy day :)

Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room

Christmas season found me in a funk this year.  Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I was working on a family project and was tiring of the process.  I couldn't decorate until said project was complete, and by the time it was complete, I saw no point.  I learned a lesson in this that I hope to remember.

While Christmas always seems to be a challenging time to find the quiet and peace that we all crave, failing to decorate did not change that.  What I found was that when I wasn't preparing my home, I was also neglecting to prepare my heart for this beautiful season.

So last night - yep December 15th- Andy and Julia picked up a tree.  It is drier than a fresh tree should be, and we are trimming it tonight.  It's a smallish tree compared to some of our past selections.  I doubt we will even put half the ornaments on it.  A few shopping trips this weekend combined with pulling out the decorations lightened my heart, and here we are.

I stopped to take a break and let the kids take over.  I jumped on the computer to order a replacement for the ornament that Zach received his senior year.  It broke last year, and the company was sold out when I tried to replace it.  They have upgraded to a newer option with personalization on the front and back, so I added his nickname and the highlights of his senior season and then jumped on the blog.

It's yucky outside here - really yucky, but Christmas music is piping through the kitchen and two of the kids and Andy are in there trimming the tree and chatting about this week's finals. Zach is resting and preparing for another night shift, and I am hoping Savannah fought her way through three essays and a review today and has a clear enough head to prepare for the rest of her finals which take place tomorrow.  While I would love to have her home on Wednesday, I think she should just go ahead and sleep through Friday.  She's had it rough, but the end is in sight.

 My heart is lighter.

PS. And the tree skirt wasn't on the tree for three hours before the little dog peed on it.  UGH! Welcome to the Grizwald's Christmas.

Life Hacks, Restoring photos, and the Swedish Death Purge (sort of)

So, I've had a little project going on here...

Reality- there's nothing little about this project.  Months ago my brother showed up for a family gathering and dumped three big boxes of pictures in my foyer.  They ultimately landed in the living room, and I had no desire to sort them or deal with them.  Then we had out of town guests followed by soccer season along with an estate that I still had to settle.  I begged for help -even hosted a party with the idea that several people could knock out this project in a couple of evenings- not so.  These pictures represent four generations (sometimes more) of family from both my parents' sides.  Mind you, that means the pictures that both sets of my grandparents as well as my parents collected over a lifetime are sitting in my living room.  They have not been organized and are merged in this mess of boxes.  After days of work, I think there may be a light at the end of the tunnel, but here's some of what I've faced.

• Apparently, there was a leak in my parents' basement where the photos where stored - so many photos are glued together because they've been wet (more on how to fix that later).
• Multiple photos of people I can't identify.
• Photos that I needed to mail across the nation to distant cousins and then more found after mailing a bunch
• memories
• minimal organization
• the deeds/loans for every property my parents owned spanning four states- to think they started buying houses at under $20k
• that my paternal grandmother kept every card or letter sent to her when my grandfather died along with her drafts of the thank you letters she would send
• that my dad carried a picture of his maternal grandfather and his parents in his wallet as recently as 21 years ago - I know this because a baby picture of Savannah is in one of the sleeves
• the names of my paternal grandmother's grandparents

What I haven't found:

• a single picture of my sister who died at 17 days old, I know they existed at some point, but they are not in these boxes

Life Hack

Many years ago I had several photos that had been water damaged.  I cannot remember what caused it, but I remember reading online that because photos are processed in water, you can salvage wet photos by getting them wet and peeling them apart. This is what I've learned...

• Use room temperature water
• Stay with them, and keep trying to gently peeling them apart - eventually they usually give.  I did get distracted and left a batch in water unattended for about 45 minutes, and those were a complete loss.
• Dry them vertically as much as possible.  Don't wipe them off.
• Finally, this actually works very well for snapshots.  I haven't had much success with professional photos.

Memories

I found an envelope simply marked "Memories" that was clearly compiled by my mom.  It's full of tickets, pictures and even includes receipts for my parents' wedding bands.  Of course I can't part with  it - yet!

I don't remember the note below written from my brother to me.  I am not sure if it will survive my purge, but the evidence is right here ;)

Facebook Help

When I come across photos of people I can't identify, I go to Facebook for help.  In the case of the picture below, my uncle identified this subject as my paternal grandmother's brother.  Interesting fact, she was one of like nine kids, and this brother's children are close to my age.

Surprises

My dad's baby book is among the photos.  I am pretty sure my own baby book is long gone.  It looks like my grandpa was off fighting WWII when my dad's second birthday was celebrated as a "telegram from Daddy" is listed among the gifts he received.

I also came across a picture of my great aunt taken when she was a young woman.  I showed that one to my siblings, and they couldn't identify her.  We had never seen a single picture of her when she was young.

Organization

You may be asking why these photos have been in my living room for so long.  That's fair.  I knew they had to be in my way so that they wouldn't end up being shoved in a basement corner and ignored for who knows how long? until we move? until my kids are stuck with them?  

As much as possible, I have sorted them by my dad's side of the family, my mom's side, and then each of my siblings have a bag with pictures of them that I've sorted out.  Ultimately, I may revisit the bags and take a few to scan and share, but I'm so done with this project that I may just let that idea go.

Eventually, these will be organized in marked, big envelopes and stored in marked plastic storage boxes.

Swedish Death Purge

These are dumped on brought to me because I have always loved pictures.  In fact I have said at times, "everything in moderation except pictures."  I've spent a fortune on professional pictures of my kids and can't remember a time that I had film developed where I didn't pick up double prints.  If you had said to me 30 years ago that I would simply toss pictures taken of me in college clad in a bikini that I could wear well at that time, I would have said, "Oh, HECK NO!"  As I sorted pictures, I can't even count how many were tossed.  How do I decide what gets tossed, "do I want my kids tasked with this job later?"  So among the pictures lost to the purge...

• any landscape I don't recognize
• any blurred pictures even if you can tell who it is
• any picture of friends I had 30 years ago who I can't even name now- even if I am in said picture, even if I am rocking a bikini body I would like to have back, even if said friend's name is noted on the back of the photo
• all frames (emptied first, of course)
• and of course any damaged pictures that I don't believe can be restored
• any pictures of people I can't identify that appear to be part of some mass mailing to family and friends

So the project continues...

and I believe it's too late to decorate for Christmas, so we are truly going minimal this year.  

Thankful

Oh give thanks to the LORD; call upon his name; make his deeds known among the peoples.

I Chronicles 16:8 (ESV)

Happy Thanksgiving from our home to yours.

Our plan for the day is to gather at my brother's house, play games, and eat lots.  First, I will earn it by working through an hour of Jazzercise :). This will make my third class this week and 151st this year.  I feel the results and see them.  I may not be a size 6 again, but this certainly helps to keep me healthy and to combat things like neck pain.

photo courtesy of Derrick Dixon Photography (Derrick also provided the photography for the pics of Zach, Savannah, and Julia on the side of the home page)

Hiccups

photo by Derrick Dixon Photography

This past Wednesday Julia had her wisdom teeth removed.  She's the first of my kiddos to face that procedure.  We had the moments of hilarity as she awoke from the anesthesia.  I do have some video footage that I won't be posting :)

I had to promise to keep her under the care of a parent for 24 hours post procedure. Her initial recovery appeared to be going well. On Thursday I scheduled an appointment to pick up family photos including the one on this post (more to come later).  When I arrived home from said appointment, Julia indicated that her chest hurt.  When I asked where, it seemed to be too high to be indicative of lung issues, but she mentioned a few times that it hurt to breathe. So we ended up in the ER for four hours.  She checked out just fine and came home still determined to return to school on Friday.

Friday morning (we were warned this would be the hardest day) proved to be rough.  Julia's first words out of bed were that she was in a lot of pain and needed something for it.  So we knew right out of the gate that she would not be able to do a full day of school if she could do any.  I was already on my way out the door when this hiccup came up, so I had to go to work.  You can't just call in 1/2 hour before your day starts on a Friday.  She slept most of that day and then rallied that night.  

Now here we are on Sunday, and she's spent little time out of bed and is fighting pain - on just one side.  I know she will return to school tomorrow, but oof - still trying to figure out if maybe a visit back to the surgeon is in order especially with a holiday on the horizon.

All of that being said, this was done to take advantage of the end of year leftover HSA funds and the fact that we met our deductible.  We consulted with the oral surgeon over the removal of an extra tooth, and he recommended getting this all done at once so that Julia won't likely need oral surgery again in her lifetime.  So it felt like an elective thing which is a real struggle for me.  However, when I asked in front of the surgeon just prior to the procedure if Julia really felt so strongly about removing that extra tooth, the surgeon intervened to say that she needed it out and that it would likely be a problem and harder to remove 10-15 years from now.  He then said the magic words, "I would definitely do the same thing for my own child." Sold! Just what I needed to hear.

I will just end this with a bit of humor.  The nurse brought a band-aid to remove the IV.  By mistake she picked up a superhero band-aid.  She asked Julia if she should go get a plain one.  Julia said, "It's fine......I AM a SUPERHERO."  Julia then proceeded to tell me several times that she is a superhero -LOL.

Case Closed?

Has anyone closed an estate before?  I have submitted the final form, receipts and all the details to the probate court?  What happens next?  Do I go to court to be relieved of my duties as executrix, or will I simply receive the court order in the mail?  How long does it take?  Is there a waiting period for the heirs to contest my work if they choose?  If you know, please tell me.

It has been an emotionally, mentally and physically tiring process.  Relationships have been severed, and that court order closing the probate and ending this process will be welcome.

P.S. So this did not close the probate...I did additional paperwork and took a trip to the probate office, and now I wait for notification that all is finished.  

11/24/2019 update - yesterday marked the third anniversary of my dad's home going.  On Thursday (the 21st) this week, I retrieved the mail after spending four hours in the ER (long story for another day) and held the motion to close the probate in my hands.  It is finished.