R.I.P. Grandma

My Grandmother Irene passed away on Monday.

Of course it is always hard when someone passes away, especially right by the holidays, but the wake yesterday wasn't bad.

Most of the funerals I have been to in my life have been really sad because the person was taken before their time. You ask questions like "Why God? Why did you have to take them?" Death at those times seems so senseless.

With my grandma it is different. She was 94 years old. It was her time. She lived a long and full life. I don't think anybody can complain about making it to 94 years old.

What is the most impressive to me is that she was still living on her own in her house. Granted, the family was going over there several times a week and helping her out and she was mainly just living on the one floor, but still, that's impressive.

We'll miss you Grandma.

Vegas baby, Vegas!

Just got back from Vegas. The perfect trip. The perfect amount of time.

I think the secret to going to Vegas is to not stay in Vegas. By that I mean you need to take a trip out into the desert to see Red Rock or go to the Hoover Dam or like I just did, trek all the way down to the Grand Canyon.

The thing about the Grand Canyon that I found amazing is that it isn't in the middle of the desert which is how I remembered it. That's what it looks like, right? No, to get there you need to go through this beautiful mountainous forest.

Words and pictures don't do the Grand Canyon justice. So I won't even try. I will just mention that I had to close my eyes a few times- I couldn't handle watching the Japenese tourists who were getting soooooo close to the snow covered ledge!

Vegas itself was a good time. Broke even or there abouts. I consider breaking even to be equal to winning. Since I go there expecting to lose a couple of hundred dollars!

We gambled, we shopped, we walked, and walked, and walked and then had to sprint back to the Luxor to see the Louie Anderson show that we had bought tickets for. Do you remember Louie Anderson? A fat, blond comic who apparently hails from St. Paul (hence why we had to see him- he's from Minnesota!!!) The did a montage of footage of him from over the years before the show started. He was on Perfect Strangers. I didn't remember that. Anyways, it was one of the saddest things I have ever seen. He was just sort of bitter and sad and not that funny. He yelled at the audience for being uptight and not laughing enough. Just give us something to laugh at, buddy! You just sort of had the feeling that he gets up there and looks out at the audience and thinks, "Dear God, I can't believe this is my life." And not in a good way.

So that was a little disappointing.

But all in all the trip was fantastic.

My favorite part about Vegas is that they have slot machines in the airport! What better way to kill some time as you wait for your flight!?! And we ended up winning back some of our money. Always good to go out on a high note.

So yeah, three days. Perfect amount of time. Not enough time to get sick of it. Not enough time to do EVERYTHING that you wanted, which gives you a reason to look forward to going back.

Next time we WILL be doing the human chicken fights. No doubts about it. That's right, human chicken fights. Two people put on chicken outfits and tie balloons to their ankles and the other person has to try and pop the balloons! I'm thinking this idea has Kegs 'n Carnies written all over it!

laughter

Well, they say that laughter is the best medicine, and I could use some medicine to help me kick this cold. So let's talk about things that have made me laugh lately:

1. The size of my photo on this website. It's ridiculous. And I can't figure out how to make it smaller. So I'm not some vain freak, I am just computer illiterate.

2. Better Off Ted. That show is my one weakness. I've gone off before about how people watch too much TV, but watching Better Off Ted last night reminded me of how enjoyable watching TV can be!

3. I randomly found my way to Brian's (a boy I went to college with) blog where he wrote about the shopping that he and his wife just did:

Michelle splurged even more than I did. She bought herself a new toy for MSP. It's a Canon 7D camera. I'm sure she'll never let me touch it, but I am already used to not being able to touch her, ahem, our camera (I actually bought the one she's been using for the past 14 months.) I just re-read the previous sentence and how it's written is pretty funny, hopefully you will catch the laugh I just did.

4. The present that I bought for my sister for Christmas. I can't post what it was in case she happens to read this but it will make her laugh. I like making her laugh.

5. When I totally tripped and bit it going up the stairs of the el. Gotta be able to laugh at yourself. I wanted to tell the people around me, "Don't worry, I do this like four times a day!" I thought I'd grow out of my clumsiness. I guess not.

6. I told my friend (who lives in Minnesota) that in the future I would contemplate moving up to Minnesota to be closer to my boyfriend and she responded, "I've never rooted for one of your boyfriends so hard before. He's the one! I can just feel it! And if it doesn't work out you should just move back up here anyways!"

7. My old man neighbor was shoveling his back sidewalk yesterday and just looked miserable doing it. And then his dog ran up with a stick in her mouth and was just bounding around the yard in the snow, having the time of her life! Dogs are great.

relationship status

Here is a dilemma that none of my married friends have to worry about... at what point do you reveal a relationship on Facebook?

When do you switch your profile from saying "Single" to "It's complicated" or "In a relationship"?

I've decided that there is a proper time to do this, which I will get to in a moment.

I have been dating a boy for a few months and he is my boyfriend. It's not complicated, in fact, it is quite simple. He. Is. My. Boyfriend.

He was showing his parents my facebook page just to show them a few photos of me or whatever and they were making fun of him that it still says I am single. I responded that it does NOT say that I am single, it simply does not give a relationship status. I also responded that his profile doesn't say that he is in a relationship.

He responded that he would update his status if I updated mine. I said no way.

The next time I update my relationship status on Facebook will be when I get married. Not before that. Nope. Not when I get engaged. Not when I am living with someone. It will be when I am married. If then.

Mainly because I don't ever want to have to change it back to single if it doesn't work out. That's the biggest reason.

And part of me just likes the privacy.

misleading

While sitting at the kitchen table this morning I saw my sister's Prevention magazine. It had a teaser on the cover that said "WALK OFF 1 SIZE FAST! -Drop Pounds in 1 Week! -Lose 5 Belly Inches."

Sounds great, right? How are you going to do all this by walking? I decided to check it out.

So I went to the page that they indicated and then turned back to the front to make sure that I had the right page. What was the name of the article? "Turn your walk into a run... and drop a size in 4 weeks."

So that's how you "walk" off the weight, you walk it off by running!

I've been robbed!

I know better. I do. I know that I live in a big city that has one of the highest crime rates in the country. And I know that I ride through the ghetto on my way home. These are all ingrained in my head. I also know that because of these things, I need to be more aware of my surroundings.

I know these things. But apparently tonight I didn't care. I never play games on my cell phone but tonight I decided to play Mine Sweeper. And I wasn't even playing it very well. My fingers kept hitting the wrong squares and ruining the game. But I was in my own little world because I felt safe because I was tucked away on the last seat of the train, not by a door. I'm more careful when I'm by a door.

Yup.

The signal sounded that the doors were closing and BAM! the guy across the aisle jumps up, snatches the phone from my hand and races out the door!

It happened SOOOOO fast! I have to give him that.

In fact, it took me a split second to realize what had happened and by that time he was already out on the platform and running.

I did contemplate running after him for a split second but who are we kidding? Besides, I don't want to be running in that neighborhood!

Really all I had time to do was yell after him, "You asshole!" More surprised than angry.

It made me feel a little better. I would have felt much better if I had been able to yell out "I curse you!"

Of course, every person on the train turns to stare at me.

"That dude stole my phone," I felt the need to explain.

I got a few "awwws" and sympathetic looks but there wasn't much they could do.

At least he didn't get my wallet. At least I didn't get hurt. And at least I dropped my phone two weeks ago and cracked the upper right corner of the screen. Suck on that, jerk!

I debated stopping to tell the train official what had happened but decided instead to race home and deactivate my phone account and change all my passwords.

Thankfully I had erased all the dirty photos off my phone a few days ago! :)

So I don't think there is any way they can really harm me by having my phone now- can they?!?

And I am going to buy the new iphone that I wanted on Saturday.

It just makes me mad. Mostly at myself for being such a dumb suburban girl when really I know better!

nativity

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! We put our Christmas decorations up this weekend. The joy of a fake tree (other than the fact that my sister is not allergic to it like she is a real tree) is that you can put it up early and not worry about it dying before you get to the new year.

We also put up the Nativity. How do I describe our nativity sets? We have several. Yes, several.

There is the plush one that the toddlers can play with. That unfortunately dogs also seem to love!

There is the old one from Grandpa Kuratko that is very fragile (about half of the sheep only have three legs or less!) and has to be kept in the glass case.

There is the Mexican one that is desert themed with cactus and rattlesnakes that we picked up in New Mexico a few years back.

And then there is the Fontinini. I don't have words to describe this. There are well over a hundred pieces. All hand painted. But plastic so the kids can play with them. We like to play the game where you give the kids something to find like "Can you find three cats?" and they have to search until they find them. Each of the characters has a name and is a real character from the Bible and comes with a little sheet of paper that tells their story. For example, Samantha is the woman who made the swaddling clothes for Baby Jesus. Who knew?