Celebrity Fit Club

The gym is doing "Celebrity Fit Club", the competition formerly known as Biggest Loser. You pick a celeb. I am thinking Sarah Rue.. I love her. She was so comfortable with her body when she was heavy. She was very confident, but since she lost the weight she has become even more confident. I think she is beautiful and talented. So my Celeb is going to be Sarah. Now I just need to get the mind set.

I have been having issues lately with food and  prayer. Prayer mostly since gram died. I have been  angry and I have been denying that I am angry with God and myself. But I have to take a step back and put everything in perspective. It's hard to do. Eating and blaming are so much easier that accepting and working hard.

Even now I am trying  to find excuses and reasons and I am looking internally for a fight. I am always looking for a fight. My defenses are up and I am ready to yell at anyone. Dave usually ends up being the one I rip into. I know this and I need to stop. I am catching myself more often, but I am still using him as a verbal punching bag. So hold on a sec. There is something I need to do.

I had my head in my hands and my eyes closed, I was praying. Dave looked over and asked if I was ok. While we pray at dinner, we don't normally sit down and just pray. So seeing someone in that position makes you wonder if they are ok. I don't want it to be that way anymore. I want prayer to be something that is common here.

So we swing back around to the celeb fit club. It starts on April 1. I am also working on my 5k's! I have one this Saturday. The Egg-celent  5K. I figure two birds one stone. I am going to improve my 5K time and lose some weight! I  want to be happy and healthy. I want to do 5K's and not feel like I am dying. I want to feel good in my pants. I want my boobs to not fly up and slap me around. I want to be healthy. And I will. Just you wait and see.

Time for a prayer

Dear God, Thank You for today. Thank You for  loving me and accepting me even when I am angry with you. Thank You for the time I had with  my Grandma and for giving me the chance to know such a spectacular woman like her. Thank You for helping me to see my way back to you. Please help me in the hours, days and months ahead while I work to change my life. Please be with those who are suffering. Hold those close to you who are grieving. Hold those up who need your support. Please be with my Uncle Marlin as he struggles with his own health. I love You and I am sorry for  turning from You. In Your name I pray. Amen

Out of Nowhere

My grandma had a ceramics shop in her basement. She made Christmas villages that were so beautiful. There were houses and businesses, people playing and sledding, old bridges for the horse drawn buggy to go over, trees galore and a church. The church sticks with me. It was so beautiful. It was snow white with gold detailing. The windows were open and a light was set inside. It looked very much like the church I attended as a child. Sometimes I would close  my eyes and imagine the people in there. I could hear the bell ringing in the steeple and hear Christmas carols being sung. She was a fan of putting wind up music boxes in things. It is one of my favorite Christmas decoration pieces, that church.

She made other wonderful things down there too. She made dolls prettier then any you could find in the stores. She made chess sets and mugs, beer steins, plates, platters, bears, toys and more knick knack items then you could shake a stick at. I have boxes of them in my garage. All waiting to be painted and fired. She wanted to teach me, but I thought I knew. I was wrong. I haven't the slightest idea what to do with any of it. So it sits.

When we were kids she would take us down there and let us pick a piece to paint. We had to clean them, scrapping away the little ridges and dusting all the powder off. We painted and glazed and fired. As a matter of fact in the little door of my desk I  have a black cat and a cat with an orange moon behind it. Those were the things I made with pride when I would go down to grandmas basement.

When grandma got sick she started giving away all  her ceramic stuff. I didn't know if I wanted it. I always figured there would be time. But there's not, it's gone and so is she and I will never get the chance to  ask her how it all works. I wont be able to show her what I've done, like I did so often as a kid.

She made these ornaments. Every year was something different. She made them for her church, for Thrivent, for our church and she would make special ones for those who passed away. I have one she made when her mother passed away. She made them for Poppy and Grandpa Kelly and she even made one for Tim. I have all of them. I found Poppy's today when I was cleaning out the garage. I stood there and I looked at it and cried. Who makes the ornament for her now?

bad blogger

I haven't been such  a great blogger  lately. My heart and my head aren't in it. I have a lot to say and I feel a million different  ways every day. But it is hard for me to oput it down. Everything is so raw and I cry all the time. Just the thought of her,  the mention of her name or the loneliness that comes when I realize she is gone, send me on a crying jag that tears me apart. I know that it gets better. I know the immediate sting of loss goes away and that one day I will think of her and it wont hurt anymore. But I am not there.

My grandma was an avid reader. One of her favorite stories was that by the time she was 12 she had read all the books in the kids portion of her public library. The librarian allowed her to go upstairs and get The Count of Monte Cristo. So my sister is on a mission. Gram would have been 80 this year. So she is collecting 80 books to donate to that library. And since that is going so well she is collecting another 80 for a different library. I have amazing sisters.

I think I am going to go lay down. I will try this again later

It's been four days

It's been four days since she died. It might as well have been a life time ago. But it has only been four days. The last time she had really "lived" had been a month before that. The last time she was able to move about on her own, feed herself, talk and laugh without difficulty was a month. They say the last thing to go is the hearing. I believe it. Because even as she was laying there, not moving, not talking, not smiling, she knew we were talking about her. My Aunt Di was telling a little story and my Grandma Kelly's eye brows would jut up at certain spots. Almost as in response. She knew we were talking about her. That's how I knew she heard me say good-bye the last time. She didn't have to say anything or hug me back or laugh or smile, I knew from her eye brow that she was saying good bye.

It has been four days since she died. The earth has not stopped spinning. The air is still cold and there is still snow on the ground. It is warm in my house and there is no lack of oxygen to breath, but I can't get warm, I am always cold inside and it feels like sandbags of sorrow are preventing me from catching my breath.The weight of sadness far surpasses my own weight and it has engulfed me and hangs from me. It's a second skin.

It's been four days since she died. Only four. I know I must give myself time to grieve. My heart is broken and I must allow myself time to heal. But it feels like a lifetime ago. Wednesday night feels like it was a million nights ago. I feel like screaming why does it still hurt so damn much? Why do I feel like I shouldn't be allowed to grieve? Maybe because I have been grieving her for so long. Maybe because I think I knew it was coming, I should have been more prepared. I should have known. I should have had my grieving done and I should be celebrating her life, I should be living, I should be ok. But I'm not. I'm grieving. I'm broken.

It has been four days since she died. Every night my son comes to me and he is crying or hurting, tonight he is sick. Grief manifests itself in many ways. My daughter wants to be left alone. She will come to me for a moment or two, but she wants to be left alone in her pain. I don't know what I want to do. I want to clean the house because Grandmas house was always clean. But when I get up to clean I feel like a zombie. I move slowly through the house accomplishing something but nothing all at once. Some moments I want to have people around, I don't want to be alone, I need human interaction. I need to feel something. But as I am in those moments I realize I don't think I feel anything at all. Then I realize what I am doing and what is happening and I cry, like I am now. I want a hot bath, in a tub I can fit in (I'm fat, grief doesn't change that). I want a book and tea and silence.

It has been four days since she died. In four days  I have put on 2 pounds. I don't even realize I am eating half the time. I find out when I am covered in crumbs or my hands in the box or I don't care to stop.

My grandma would not like this behavior. She under stood grief. She understood pain, but she didn't let it get the best of her. She would let me grieve but remind me that I am living and that I have to continue doing that.