Friday, March 30, 2007

Not a Huge Surprise

You Are An ISFJ

The Nurturer

You have a strong need to belong, and you very loyal.
A good listener, you excell at helping others in practical ways.
In your spare time, you enjoy engaging your senses through art, cooking, and music.
You find it easy to be devoted to one person, who you do special things for.

You would make a good interior designer, chef, or child psychologist.


It amazes me how accurate these quizzes can be. Oh...I have to include this one, too. It's a little depressing, but I suppose that fits with the cynical side of me. ;-)

You Are Changing Leaves

Pretty, but soon dead.

Sunday, March 25, 2007

And life happens.

It's hard to believe that so much can happen in just a few days' time. My life is starting to feel a little bit like the geriatric version Desperate Housewives. :-P (EDIT: I can't go into too much detail, but please do pray for our family.)

Thursday evening around 9 o'clock -- My parents find out that my grandma is being taken to the ER. She hadn't been eating regularly, and her stomach was extremely hard. Fortunately, my dad's cousin was still staying at her house with her and was able to drive her to the hospital. My parents met them there, and then my dad stayed overnight at my grandma's house with her 93 year old husband (he's not related to us). Mom didn't get home until 1 am.

Friday morning -- I find out that Grandma was suffering from an impaction, which is something I refuse to explain in detail here. (You can research it on Wikipedia if you have the desire to do so.) Even though she will recover from it quickly, we all realize that things will only go downhill from here. She is extremely weak, prone to falling, and unable to care for herself (much less her husband), so she will need someone to stay with her 24/7. At least we were already aware that things were heading in that direction, so we had been considering our options.

Friday afternoon -- We all find out that my grandma's husband is missing. His truck isn't at the house or the hospital, and everyone is worried. The last thing we ever want to hear is that he's out driving alone. He was supposed to be waiting for Dad at the house so they could pack him up and send him to his son's farm. Since there's nothing we can do, Mom, my siblings, and I continue with our afternoon plans and head into town to look for a dress for my senior pictures (scheduled for Saturday). Dad meets us at Dillard's, and I have a great time trying on dresses for him. The winner is a woodsy green satin gown; I can't wait to wear it!

Later Friday afternoon -- We discover that Grandma's husbandwent to the pharmacy before heading to the hospital, where he just missed Dad. We're all pretty upset by this point, especially since some other strange behavior of his has come to light. He also refuses to go out to his son's farm and wants to stay at the house. So, we visit Grandma at the hospital and grab dinner at Jason's Deli (my favorite!) before heading home.

Saturday morning -- Mom and I run around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to get ready for my senior pictures. Getting home late the night before didn't help matters, and we were very late leaving for the appointment. We ended up rescheduling it before we left the driveway because the photographer didn't want me to be rushed and stressed for these pictures. He's been looking forward to doing them for a long time, and we all want them to be great. We'll do them Sunday afternoon.

Saturday afternoon -- We clean, and we reorganize desk space. Yay. I have a Mary Kay skin care class to conduct, which goes reasonably well. Selling stuff makes me happy. :-)

Saturday evening -- We just don't know what to do. My grandma is released from the hospital, and she wants her husband out of the house. How do you go about kicking a 93 year old man out, even though he deserves it? And what are we going to do about taking care of Grandma? Will she be coming to stay with us, and if so...when? It's all up in the air.

Sunday -- Awesome photo shoot! We didn't get the formal shots because his camera batteries were drained, but the Statehouse was closing anyway when we got there. We spent 4 1/2 hours with him! I'm sure there will be some great ones to choose from, and maybe I'll post some here. Mom and I stopped at Carino's on the way home to get some Italian Nachos and Italian Cream Sodas...and did they ever hit the spot! We also got to talk a bit more about the situation with Grandma. It's all going to come down to Dad, and what he feels he needs to do at this point. There's obviously been a lot of praying going on. Grandma doesn't necessarily feel like her husband needs to leave anymore, but I'm not sure we've all come to the same conclusion. What a confusing mess.

So, yeah...that's what my weekend's been like. By next week, I could be moving out of my room and into my sister's -- or not. We just don't know. That's the hardest part of it all: the unknown. If I had a rough plan or a general idea of how things were going to progress, I'd feel a lot more comfortable. But, I don't. Now I really know what people mean when they talk about trusting God. All of the other times I thought I was trusting Him were illusions, because I had enough information to feel comfortable with the situation on my own. Now I don't have that security; all I have is the knowledge that these situations will work out for our good and His glory. Isn't that enough?

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

I'm a Traitor

Yes, I have officially tired of Xanga. I haven't posted there for months, partially due to lack of interest, but also partially due to busyness. Blogging just hasn't been a priority. Although it will most likely remain a non-priority for me right now, I think I'm ready to make a little more room for it as a hobby.

I think Blogger will be a better fit for me than Xanga or Facebook simply because I am not a social butterfly by nature. I hate the idea of feeling inextricably tied to an online social network where I'm expected to update my profile every time I eat some nachos or blow my nose. No offense intended; it's just not my thing. :) Some of you might live and breathe by such social networking tools...more power to you. I'll stick to my antisocial blog that I can update when I feel that something interesting is actually going on in my life -- no pressure, no guilt.

Just from my experience creating this account I can tell that I need to lighten up my blogging attitude. I was starting to obsess over finding the perfect blog name, the perfect URL, and the perfect screen name. (Will I ever learn that perfect doesn't exist? Especially in a hobby?) Evidently not. I'm still trying to get rid of the urge to create the perfect first post. *sigh* Oh well.

Bonsoir!