The Countdown has begun...

At the beginning of pregnancy you count up...10 weeks, 12 weeks, 28 weeks...but when you get to a certain point you start counting down again. I've got 5 weeks left until I'm a deliverable week count. It will probably be another 2 weeks after that before I actually deliver, but still, I've begun my countdown. I went to the sonographer today. I got to see the little guy. When the sonographer showed us the male anatomy, my husband said, "Ohhh, it's big." What a man thing to say! Anyways, despite the fact I keep saying "she", I suppose it is a "he." I really want a boy but since I keep saying "she" I'm afraid my mother's intuition is telling me its a girl and the docs are all wrong and we got a lot of boy clothes that we don't really need. So...the baby's healthy. I'm healthy. And I'm afraid 5 weeks are going to seem like 20 weeks and only one day all at the same time. I didn't ever know that something could be too fast and too slow all at the same time...hmmm, pregnancy really does make you crazy, huh?

Josephine Rose

I went to the funeral of my grandmother today. I hate funerals. I don't like seeing dead bodies. It doesn't remind me of the good times...it reminds me of the fact that she's gone. I've decided when I die. I want a closed casket and lots of pictures of me. Pictures from my birth, my youth, my mothering years and my grandmothering years...and if I make it long enough my great-grandmothering years. Fun pictures.
What I remember most about my grandmother is her potpurri. I remember that she had a beautiful flower garden with herbs amongst the flowers. She would carefully select the more fragrant varieties. After drying out the petals and various plant pieces, we, the grandkids, got to help her. She would put a huge pile on a sheet. We would each grab a corner and she would gently tap in a drop or two of magic smell and we would toss and wiggle those petals around by tugging at our respective corners. That's what I remember about Grandma...her smell. When we visited her house in the piney woods, I would bring extra clothes in my bag so that when I got home I had an outfit to wear that smelt of Grandma's house. I'm glad that after 10 years of alzheimer's, Grandma is finally in a place where she can have a garden again. I can't wait to see it...in 70 years or so.

12.26.05

Tonight has been a very relaxed evening. We spent the day out at my parent's house and enjoyed a little "birthday party for Jesus". My Dad can come up with some odd stuff, but it turned out to be a very good and memorable experience. I dinked around for quite a while and played, while Amelia chatted with the women. Playing so much there is something I need to get over. We left around 4 or 5 and got home in time to eat some food and then have FHE. Goals were our subject. I came up with a few really specific ones and Amelia came up with some good goals for her to work with. I may have gave her a hard time about it at first, but then I looked at the quote I put on our goal sheet from President Kimball. It said that goals should be set by the individual, and not someone else for them. I believe that. Tonight I cleaned the apartment and got the Christmas stuff put away. It gave me a lot of time to reflect on this holiday and the peace I feel. For Christmas, my Dad presented a history he had written of the past 10 years of our family's life and called it, "The Third Decade". Every paragraph reminds me of a vivid and happy memory. I can only hope that my life is filled with as many memories.

Testing...

here we go...the chronicles of the sheen family.