Today starts an emotional weekend for our family.
Tomorrow we will celebrate the life of my grandmother who passed away on July 21.
Born on January 10, 1923, she lived a long, remarkable 90 years.

Many people don't even get the chance to get to know their grandparents, or even meet them.

I was blessed to have her in my life for the past 38 years.
My husband felt lucky when he came into my family - he got to have grandparents again (his all passed away when he was young).

We were a close family - having lived near her, or with her, our entire lives.
She was a sweet, gentle, kind, loving woman who loved roses and the colors pink and purple.
In honor of her love for those colors, the family is wearing pink and purple to her memorial tomorrow.

I know that my grandfather, who passed away in 2002, was happy to (finally) see her after all these years.
I can hear him saying when she arrived "Lorraine, what took you so long?"
Oh, the stories she has for him.
Since he passed, 7 great grand children were born and 5 grandchildren got married - and many more family weddings and births!!
She recently said to me, she never thought she'd live to be 90, but boy was she glad she did! "Think of all the things I would have missed," she said.

Last summer we celebrated her 90th birthday - almost the entire family was here. We had a professional photographer take tons and tons of pictures - we are so blessed and will be displaying those pictures tomorrow.

At that celebration, my grandmother had me design this saying in the shape of a circle, with a heart in the center - everyone has it framed to forever remember the celebration and her:

Our family is a circle of strength and love
With every birth and every union the circle grows
Every joy started adds more love
Every crisis faced together makes the circle stronger
May our circle always be strong


As hard as the weekend will be, and I will shed many tears, I know she is free of pain, happy to be reunited with my grandpa (and her dog) and the sun will be shining down on us tomorrow helping make it a beautiful day to honor her long life and the family she created.


Love ya Grandma and I miss you already.


http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/dailyherald/obituary.aspx?n=lorraine-agnes-pfursich&pid=166292995#fbLoggedOut

15 days....

Yes I am counting down to the end of summer!  It has gone fast.  We have had a ball.  But it's time for it to be over.

It's not me, it's them (I swear!).  My boys are driving each other crazy.  They are sick of each other. They are missing their schedules, their friends, their learning (my oldest who will be in 5th grade didn't know how many hours it was from 11:30 to 1:30....he said 3!)  Time to go back to school.

And I only have 15 days to get them back on a good sleep schedule.  Gone are the nights that they stay up until 10 or 11 pm and sleep until 9 or 10 am....oh dear.

Luckily my oldest has art camp next week which starts at 9am each day, so it will be early to bed and early to rise which will help.

But as always, it's a beautiful day and I am thankful that I am able to enjoy the summer with them while I work from home.  I get up early (6am) and work for a few hours before we go do fun summer activities each day.  And there have been plenty of lazy days where we haven't even gotten out of our pajamas (and dare I say I just let them play on electronics all day which I surfed the net!?)

But the fighting, bickering and wrestling has got to stop.  I am looking forward to routines, schedules, soccer practice, piano lessons and after school clubs!

Wait, it's really 14 days and 17 hours! Ahh...it IS a beautiful day!