Good Grandma Time

What a lovely weekend.  There was a baby shower back in Pekin, so I got to see lots of family, chase around lots of toddlers, and eat lots of good food.  All that was a delight, but the best part was hanging out with Grandma.  She and I are both more sentimental with Grandpa gone, and thinking about him all the time.  Of course, I benefit from a zillion distractions back here in Chicago.  She's there in their wonderful home, surrounded by the rooms and cabinets he built.  She wouldn't want to be anywhere else, but ... you get it.

She wanted to go home from the shower fairly early last night, but then we stayed up and talked for over 2 hours.  It was mostly family stories.  Some funny, some sad.  It was especially sad hearing about my brothers.  She's said to me many times how proud she is of how my mom and dad handled us kids in the divorce.  It wasn't until years later that I realized that it affected my brothers very differently than me.  She talked about us saying goodbye to Dad at her place when he had to head back home, and Geno just crying and crying.  She would take him into the house for a little while before sending us back to Mom's.  I remember that being hard, too, but I was only thinking of myself at the time, not the boys.

Then I think about how Dom doesn't actually remember living with Dad when we were little.  No wonder his take on things is so different!  We talked about him for a bit, and then I called him on my drive back home and we had a nice long talk, too.  Not about this stuff in particular, but real stuff.  He seems happy, and I'm happy for him.

I came home earlier than I wanted to so I could finish my week's work for this terrible accounting class.  I shouldn't say it's terrible, but I am woefully unqualified to take it.  There should be a prereq.  Guess what?  There is a prereq starting next session.  I got in just under the gun thinking I was really making out a winner.  Turns out I only burned myself.  So I'm going to drop it or withdraw.  I know it's the right thing to do, but I hate this quitting feeling.  Yuck yuck yuck.

Lately when I start to wallow like that, I think about friends who are struggling with real things - fertility issues, family loss, new life, new marriage, etc.  It provides some pretty great perspective.  Who cares if I quit a class?  Who cares if I have a W on my transcript?  It's not worth the stress.

So.  Wine and bed.  And maybe Buffy for some good distraction.  'Night.

Accounting is the WORST

Now you know, and have been warned.  

Godspeed.