Sorting Through A Lifetime of Treasures:

As many of you will remember, our 

Grandma Pearl passed away in May.

It is true, what her headstone says.  Grandma was a loving wife, mother and grandmother.  Grandma will forever be in our hearts.

Last week and this week, our nephew's girlfriend, Samantha, took on the difficult task of organizing Grandma's house.  She did a great job of sorting and putting "like things a like" together into piles, boxes and sacks. How hard she worked, and what an impressive job she did.  Thank you so much, Sam!

Yesterday, many of the local family members went over to Grandma's house and sorted through what they wanted or could use.  Our great niece Holli was so cute; she is into retro clothing and was having fun finding some things that she could wear.  Maykala was happy with all the perfume she found, and Logen loved the "boy perfume".  Cary's Mom and I saved back treasures for family members who couldn't be here, and brought those back to our own homes.  Darlene's dining room is full of photos and other special mementos.

Our house now looks like this, not counting the stuff in our den:

I offered to wash all the pretty dishes that will be going to California and to Washington, and get them packed up:

Everything was going fine with this project when I fell into10  minutes of  weirdness.  I loaded and turned on the dishwasher full of things that could be washed in there.  Then, I began washing my first set of old beer mugs by hand in hot, soapy water.  The last mug broke right along the lip, and cut my finger above my right knuckle.  It was kind of a deep gouge and was really bleeding a lot.  Good thing that I am self-reliant and don't faint at the sight of blood, that is all I can say about that.

Then, Cary's cell began to ring, but he wasn't home.  I ignored it.  I had to prioritize, you know.

I figured, well, my hands are clean, so I grabbed a thick Bounty paper towel to apply direct pressure.  Then the home phone rang.  I told it, I am in the middle of something here and ignored it.  Then my cell phone rang.  I thought, well, I guess I had better answer that one, something must be going on.  My Dad had called to tell me that my stepmother's sister had died in the middle of the night.  As we were talking about that, our new dishwasher began making terrible noises.  I ran over there and turned it off.  My Dad said, what is going on over there, and I said, I don't know, but it sure seems to be centering around the sink and those dishes!  After I hung up the phone from my Dad, I put three bandages on my finger.  Talk about a Calgon Take Me Away moment that lasted for 10 minutes.  Brother. 

Then, Cary's cell phone rang again.  I answered it that time, and it was my stepson wanting to visit with his Dad, who was still gone (he had run down to work for a bit).  Cary came back shortly after all the action was over with.   

The cut on my hand put me out of commission for hand washing dishes and I decided that I had done enough for the day.  I settled down to reading my book (I am finishing up The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan) and resting.  

My finger is much better this morning, and now I have a lot of work to do to clean our house back up.  Most of the items in the photos will be leaving our home and going other places, so at least I only have to put them into boxes and take them over to my mother-in-law's.

Cary fixed the dishwasher.  Thanks, honey! I had a bowl that was way too heavy on the top shelf, and it was pushing down on the spinner thing.  That was dumb of me, but now I know.

Well, I guess that I had better get to work.  

I hope that you are all having a nice weekend.