Things to do...

Well, an otherwise very uneventful week has been transformed, sadly, into an eventful week. Aimee lost her father very early yesterday morning, very unexpectedly. They weren't close, but it is still quite a shock for her and her brother, who was on deployment in Iraq and is on his way here as we speak. With the loss of a family member of course comes a lot of turmoil in the form of the things to be handled, and with Greg's time in the States so limited, things have to happen a whole lot faster than in most cases.

Aim, like most of us, has no experience planning a funeral, so of course all her friends and family are trying to step up and make sure that she knows she is by no means alone in taking all of this on. Her mom, aunt and uncle were able to go with her to the funeral home yesterday and handle all of the arrangments there right away, yesterday. I was very glad to hear they were able to help with that, because Lloyd and I were ready to take her if no one else could. I have no experience with this stuff either, but he has some, and he has a great built in bullshit detector that works well in those kind of situations! But that part is handled, and the service will be Wednesday afternoon.

Dawn is coming up for the weekend for moral support, and I think I may invite myself over for a while too, to hang out, and to help get the house in order a little bit for all her guests. NO, I will not over-do it, Mom, I promise--and you know this is something I need to do, so shush.

But, I am offering to do the thing that I do best, and handle the entire reception portion of things. It won't be a big group, or a long gathering, and I'm perfectly capable of whipping out some little finger-foods, cookies and such, the obligatory veggie & cheese tray, coffee service, that kind of thing. That is something I'm very capable of doing, especially since I have all the serving pieces needed already, and can do things in bits and pieces up until Wednesday. Anna will help me with some things, and Lloyd will help me with others, and it will work out just fine.

Do I feel 100% wonderful right now? No. But am I up to this? Yes. It's only a little bit of time and effort each day and I can handle that for a few days, and then I can lay down for a week if I need to. It's something I can do for Aimee, so that she has one less thing to be concerned about. I will show up at her house early on Weds and put things together before the service, and it will magically get done. She was there for my for 6 weeks of chemo, so this is the least I can do. My experience doing my mother-in-law's service gave me all the practice I need. :-(

And somewhere in there, I have to bake a birthday cake! Conner is going to be 15 on Monday. Lord, can you believe he's that old?!! I remember being 15...and it doesn't seem all that awful-long ago! It will be a very baking-oriented week...

Other than that, there hasn't been much going on. I've been mainly resting, taking lots of naps and being very tired. I did get one big burst of frustrated energy the other day and pack up most of the Christmas crap that was still lurking in piles around the house. Mentally, I feel SO much better now! I still have to sort and pack all the ornaments, but the hard part is over, thank god. I'm suffering for that physically, of course, but it was worth it. Like I said, lots of naps this week.

With all of that said, I think I'm going to go try and crank out some cookies right now. I made the dough last night, so I just have to do some mass baking. Little bits in spurts...that works out.