My Grandma Noel and Mother's Day Adventures

It's been a crazy few weeks around here. Crazy and sad and exhausting, but also crazy and fun. Just at different times, I guess.

I went to Memphis April 22nd-25th and presented at the Tennessee Library Association conference. Lukie had given me a stomach bug earlier in the week, but I was well enough to drive to Memphis with my co-worker, Julie, on Wednesday. Well, I got there and the stomach bug made a nasty return and I spent the next 36 hours holed up in my hotel room, miserable. I got better by Friday morning, though, and Julie and I presented and, I have to say, we killed it. She would agree, I think!

I got back to find that Lukie and Pete had survived without me-- I think Lukie did better than either of us were expecting! The co-dependent part of me was sad he didn't miss me more, but the compassionate part of me was glad that he hadn't made it too hard on his daddy. He slept well while I was gone, though Peter learned that he does NOT like Lukie's bedtime habit of sticking his finger in the bellybutton of the person he's cuddling. I think he was glad that my belly button and I were back so that I could take over bedtime duties.

The week after Memphis was rough. My mom called me on Wednesday morning to tell me that my grandmother had slipped into a coma and that she had hours to days left. By 4 p.m., she was gone. 

My grandmother half raised me- I grew up next door to her and had no other neighbors for a mile around. My brother and I caught the bus at her house- so we went in and had whatever she was having for breakfast. We got off the bus and went to Grandma's house. We spent half our time in the summer there once we were old enough to stay on the farm. We spent sick days, holidays, out-of-school days, all the days at her house. 

Grandma's door was always open-- quite literally. She had big French doors in her kitchen and we'd come marching through them as if we owned the place. Even when she was on vacation, we'd go watch TV at her house, basking in the air conditioning (somehow her house was always five degrees cooler than our own). She'd come home, and five minutes later, Eric and I would appear asking for a big plate of white bread toast with butter (she had a toaster that made it perfect every time and we NEVER got white bread at home). We'd watch Nickelodeon and beg her to let us stay the night. she usually did.

After she passed, I worried on it for two days but then decided I needed to be at home. Pete was, as always, supportive of whatever I felt like I needed to do. In truth, he wished he could go, as he and my grandmother had a special relationship (she always told me to "tell Pete I just love him! He's so wonderful!" when I hung up the phone with her), but it was the last week of classes at his school. I flew out of Knoxville on Saturday, stayed through Monday morning, and was back in time for Pete's students to come over for a picnic on Monday night.

I missed my boys, especially my littlest boy, but it was good to be home, and in a lot of ways, it was good to be home without the little person, hanging out with my cousins without chasing him everywhere and protecting both him and everyone's personal property. I got to spend time at my aunt's on Saturday night, and saw this lady, Miss Skylar, who has been "my girl" since she was born. We spent a lot of time negotiating when she is going to come down and be Lukie's nanny for a week. :) Her mama and I had a couple glasses of wine and lamented not living closer together.

By the way, the busy-ness has not included me hauling around my real camera...so, sorry for a post full of iPhone photos. I picked up this photo of myself at my mom's house...and I swear it's Lukas with long hair...though I have no idea what I'm doing with my face here...

It was good to be home. All 11 grandchildren made it, and we told stories at the funeral. Grandma Noel was a wonderful, enchanting lady who was smart as a whip and one of the least judgmental people I've ever met. She was genuinely intellectually interested in everyone and everything, a rare quality. I'll miss talking about books with her (she always liked my picks but told me I had "quirky" taste), and chatting with her about Lukas or my latest show, asking her about her church friends or her garden. I'll miss her support in everything.

I got home to irises blooming, which she would have loved (though they aren't in pastels, the only colors which made it into her front garden, but she loved a nice bright bloom elsewhere). The mirror that hung in her dining room, part of a set that went to my father and which he sweetly let me have, hangs in my dining room now. I like to think of her putting on her makeup (she used lipstick on her cheeks instead of blush-- said it lasted longer and always matched her lips) in it in the mornings. I'll have to scrape the hot glue off of it, I guess- though that reminds me of her, too. :)

Anyway, we got through the week, and decided to have an adventure weekend in celebration of Mother's Day. Pete had to go to Tusculum's commencement Saturday morning. Afterward, we piled into the car and drove to Asheville, NC. We stopped at a tea and spice shop and I picked up some lovely white tea with peaches and pineapples, and then we went to the North Carolina Arboretum, one of our favorite outdoor places and a great place for a toddler who likes to explore.

Poopin' in a corner at the Arboretum...:)

We grabbed a pizza on the way out of town and ate it in the car. When we got home, we made the mistake of letting Lukie play with the hose. Pete ended up SOAKED.

On Saturday, Pete took Lukie to Walmart to find a Mother's Day gift for me. He came back with a new pizza cutter (we have pizza every Friday night and I was SICK of having a crappy cutter), Mary Poppins on DVD (SWEET!) and some chocolate. I had also told Pete to get Lukie a sprinkler to play in, and he came back with this thing. It's a long tube with smaller tubes that, given enough water pressure, wiggles and sprays water all over the place. The problem with it was that the tubes often didn't stand up straight enough.

Pete fixed that problem real quick...

And Lukie had tons of fun in it! We already have a play date scheduled for next weekend with some friends from Kingsport. They're bringing their little girl and everybody will have a blast!

I have more garden updates to write, and I'll get around to them, but as a quick update, we painted our front door and the weigela are blooming. They're really lovely when they bloom. I'll have to prune them back after they bloom, though, as weigela bloom on old wood; if you cut them in the fall, you'll be cutting all the stuff that would bloom next year. I love learning stuff like that!

I removed a bunch of fungal-infected irises from the back garden. I think it looks nice. That big clump at the front, though, is super floriferous and just needs to be split a bit.

One of my hosta gardens. I got new hosta in a week and a half ago, so when they're up and unfurled, I'll post more about those.

The end. Let's hope for a little happier and more relaxing time this week. In a little under two weeks, we'll be taking another adventure trip-- we're going to Georgia for an annual get-together with a bunch of our friends from grad school. Updates coming soon!

And, in honor of Noel Anne Shoemaker, as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside (and that's saying something), here she is with my beautiful baby boy last summer...