Sock Monkey Hat Awesomeness

 This is a very awkward time for me, and I'm assuming that February will always come with a stigma from now on. I'm doing a good job keeping things even keel though.

To add to this bittersweet time of year, my nephew Liam turns one next Monday. Unfortunately I don't get to partake in the birthday party, but I finished my fancy-fancy present for him earlier tonight. 

I couldn't find the perfect crochet pattern online so I mixed and matched some ideas from a couple of different websites and then winged some of it myself. I used a post from Knotty Knotty Crochet as color/size guide and this post from Easy Makes Me Happy for the toddler sized pattern. I figured it was safer to use the toddler size so that Liam might get to wear it more than once. :) 

My childhood doll Big Baby tried to model my fabulous hat, but she apparently does not have a toddler sized head. 

Yes... I called it fabulous... And it is. I'm super proud of it. :) 

On a completely different note all together, I managed to get this great accidental picture of Scarlet as she inspected my lens Sunday evening. Quite possibly the best picture I've even captured of her. 

Thanksgiving

Last Thanksgiving we left Austin on Tuesday, right after we picked out my new frames at the eye place. It was a 4 hour trek that had us driving the bulk of it in the dark. As we drove through one town we passed a place that in big red neon letters said “Meskan Restaurant”. I was horrified and went into one of my rants to Roger. He was very confused as to what I was talking about. Turns out I was seeing the sign so blurry that the X-I-C had merged in my eyes to form an S-K. Roger teased me about that for weeks.

Half way to Conroe Roger received a call that his grandmother had fallen very ill, and his father would be skipping Thanksgiving with us to drive to Dallas to care for her. It was to the point that we weren’t sure she was going to make it through the holiday. (She did but passed away this summer). My own grandma had just died 3 weeks prior.

The doglets were super excited to get out of the car when we arrived, but some of that was curbed by the presence of Molly, their extremely large lab puppy cousin…. Technically their aunt I suppose.

Wednesday was a flurry of family, baking, last minute grocery store runs, wine consumption, and this new fangled game called Angry Birds. (I’m sure it wasn’t new, but it was to us.)  In between the various stages of my pie making, I became a pro-bird thrower, and by the end of the day Roger, Kim, Joan, and I were all playing, though perhaps not as rabidly as myself.

Thursday we ate a late afternoon/early evening dinner. We set the table with 3D foam trees we had made the year before with leaves that read things we were thankful for. During dinner we all took turns saying what we were thankful for that year. I don’t even remember what mine were.

That night the Williams clan piled in the living room to watch the UT-A&M game while I started my re-read of Harry Potter 7. They were loud (primarily Roger and his dad with their big booming voices), and I remember getting irritated by just how loud one could be over a dumb football game. I wouldn’t mind hearing him cheer now.

Late Friday morning we did a little Black Friday shopping before Roger and I headed out for the 5 hour drive to my parents. He read HP7 to me in the car as I drove. He was a really good reader and made it interesting. He was such an HP trove of knowledge that any reference to another book I had forgotten he was quick to refresh my memory.

The time with my parents was pretty laid back. Saturday we played 42. I’d like to say we won, but I honestly don’t remember who did. I tried to get my parents hooked on Angry Birds too, but they seemed uninterested. I remember talking about grandmas.

Sunday Roger loaded up the trunk with firewood and we headed home. There’s still a lot of woody junk in my car from that trip. I’m too lazy to vacuum it out. He read until it was too dark to see, and we tried to listen to Christmas music, but neither of us were in the mood.

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Today we shared Thanksgiving dinner, Williams clan and mine all together. There was a lot less pomp, but I was glad to share it with the whole family.  While we didn’t have any foam trees or a specified time to share, I AM THANKFUL FOR:

*both sides of my wonderful family

*my puppies that keep me sane and silly at home

*my job that amply keeps me afloat and super busy

*laptops

Thanks, Dad!

Last weekend my family came to visit and hear my band's concert, and luckily Dad made it a working visit! Thanks for the Man Job help!

The hole in the ceiling is gone!

I have baseboards on either side of the fireplace now!

The "squirrels, be gone!" hole in my closet is patched after 2 1/2 years!

The rotten baseboard in the bathroom is replaced. 

AND, the molding is up in my toilet room! 

Irish Photo Adventure!

A Journey in Pictures:

on the Dublin Viking Tour

at Gogarty's Pub prior to the Musical Pub Crawl

the entry stone to New Grange dating from 2000 BEFORE the pyramids

 

look at the idiots swimming and sunbathing...

Dunluce Castle

 

the Christmas Card picture at Giant's Causeway

my own picture of Minard Castle from the beach

the rocks washed up on the Minard beach and the clouds hanging like fog in the hills

and as we left, the sun crept through

casting a diffused glow on the hillside

until it was abnormally radiant AND hazy at the same time

a picture taken at the beehive huts that was a complete afterthought, but i really like it :) 

Ashes to Ireland: Part 1

I've had several people already tell me that they expected a long blog entry to follow my recent trip to Ireland, and while it is inevitable (how could it not be when you free the last remaining physical connection to your husband) it is not possible... There is no way I could possibly do such a poignant trip justice in ONE long blog entry.

Therefore

PART ONE: The Gremlin and The High Cross

When Roger and I went to Ireland for our honeymoon, we very intelligently added a GPS to our car rental. It was our only saving grace on multiple occasions as Irish road maps are, if I'm not mistaken, edited and published by hamsters. (Did you know there is no P in hamster?.... thank you spell check) Remembering the deep gratitude we held for the GPS, I recommended we do the same on this trip.

Our car rental was actually the 3rd in a string of calamities on our venture. The Williams Clan and I joked that if our trip was made into a movie it would be aptly titled "National Lampoon's European Vacation Part 2". Anything that could go wrong did, and even some things that would surely by safe from error or irony were not. Upon arrival at Dublin's Avis, we were dropped off at some foreign model of Ford. My sister in law and I looked at each other, already feeling uneasy about it but hoping that gut reaction was premature.

It was a car.

There were 7 travelers on this journey, and I know of no car that would do the job. To make a very lengthy story palatable, we needed to have reserved a VAN, which is considered a utility vehicle in the most basic of definitions, but it wasn't an option as we looked for passenger vehicles. The car wouldn't hold 7 people along with 7 people's luggage, but after a pretty hefty argument, some negotiating, and of course more money, we were able to trade the car for a van the next day.

The van was a standard...
on the right side of the car...
with the stick shift in the left hand...
while driving on the wrong side of the road...
in a foreign country with poorly marked roads...
in the rain...
with a caramel coating on our windshield...

Ok, that last part didn't happen, but it might as well have. We did add on the Garmin GPS to aid our travels, but it turned out to almost be a hindrance. It insisted that we never wanted to take major roads, which is a problem in a country like Ireland. If you can imagine the narrowest of roads, just wide enough to let two cars "pass", rarely a center stripe, tall trees/bushes held back only by stone fences erected by farmers centuries ago to clear the rock for planting, limited visibility, and lots of tight often >90° turns, then you can imagine the roads the Garmin felt were in our best interest. It got to the point that my sister in law began referring to it as the Gremlin instead.

Wednesday was Roger's 34th birthday. We decided to mark it with the first spreading of ashes. I had chosen three special locations, and the first was a site close to Dublin called Monasterboice (Mon-AS-ter-boyce). Monasterboice is a cemetery at the site of a monastery (hence the name) from the 900s. In addition to a ruined tower, there are two Celtic High Crosses that also date to the early 10th century. We visited the cemetery originally to view the crosses, a form of art as well as an avenue with which monks taught the gospel utilizing the intricate carvings that tell the complete story of Jesus's life. Regardless your religious views, you cannot deny the magnitude and beauty of these monuments, and Roger especially was enamored by the site. He thought it was amazing that adjacent to a cross dating from 922AD there was a grave from 2004. Monasterboice is an active cemetery still today.

Ireland has daylight til around 10pm this time of year. We planned the evening to include an early dinner and a drive to Monasterboice giving us plenty of light for the first spreading. The weather was amazing all day; sunny, clear, and kinda warm (if it can be warm AND call for scarves). However, the second we got in the van, thick dark clouds filled the sky and it began to rain...

Back to the Gremlin... Roger and I had a difficult time finding the cemetery ourselves. The GPS didn't know where it was, and maps gave us conflicting points. It took us a great deal of time find the cemetery, but the huge tower gave it away once we were close. We arrived just as the sun was setting. The light gave it a surreal quality that made our time there even more memorable. It was empty; just us two and the groundskeeper that lived next door.

Knowing that the GPS was incorrect, I navigated what I remembered to be the accurate directions to Monasterboice. I will keep this part of the story short to preserve my dignity and skills as a map reader. Let's just say that what should have been a 45 minute drive turned into something closer to an hour and half and involved stopping at a diner to ask directions from a a seemingly lovely woman who took the time to even walk outside to show me where to go... and then snottily added that maps help. Bitch...

I was really downtrodden at this point. It was raining, dark, and a good 45 minutes later than we planned to arrive. In fact, it was almost 10pm before we saw the tower rising from the beyond the trees. And as we pulled up, I saw the gate: closed.

My heart sank a little deeper than it had already sunk nearly two hours ago when the rain first hit our windshield. I had chosen this wonderful location, and yet again the universe had other plans.

Everyone got out of the van except me. I'll admit it; I was pouting. It wasn't until I heard my name called that we could hop the fence that I begrudgingly got out. Next to the gate, actually built into the stone fence, were STEPS! Please explain to me the point of the gate if there are stairs that allow for entry...

I was the last to climb over the fence. The rain had stopped. It was still cloudy and dark, but somehow the last of the sunlight permeated just enough for us to see. I heard my nephew whisper, "It's just like Harry Potter!" The Williams Clan explored the cemetery while I walked to the back, just past the tower, to have my own moment at a site that held such a different significance not long ago. I did my best to hold back the tears, I'm not even sure why. It wasn't long before I found myself in the company of family, and the moment I didn't know I had been dreading came to be.

Roger's father held the box of ashes. We had to have them put in a plastic box so that they could be scanned at the airport. THAT is a separate story in and of itself, but one I'll leave for telling in person.

Joan, his mother, had memorized a quote that had personal meaning for her, and she recited it by heart as we solemnly listened or perhaps used it as a launching pad for our own thoughts. All the while, his father was trying, yes TRYING, to open the plastic box. I didn't realize there was a problem until I heard a "Hmm..." come from his dad. He couldn't get the box open!

After everything that had happened before, and believe me there was a laundry list (remember, we're talking Griswald trip to Ireland), I was now watching the ashes refuse to open!? I remember thinking this was really funny. Dave, my brother in law, came over to help, but even he couldn't get the box to budge.  Everything in me was laughing, but as soon as my mouth opened the internal laughter exited as blubbering tears.

"We came all the way to Ireland, and the f*cking box won't open!!!!!"

I kid you not... The moment I said f*ck, the box opened. It was noted by all that if ever there was a way Roger could demonstrate his presence, waiting for me to cuss to allow access to his ashes was definitely one way to do it.

Dave held the ashes against his chest and walked to me to grant me the first spread. The last 5 months I had envisioned a small shovel like the kind you use at the beach in my hand, but as that was but another way I was unprepared for this moment, I reached in for a handful.

It was physically nothing I had ever felt before and hope never to feel again. I would like to remember how soft Roger's lips were, how scratchy his 10am five-o'clock shadow was, and what his hugs felt like - not the consistency of his ashes. I completely broke down inside and out. What a horrible task to be set before me. I shook the ashes as I would flour from my hand along the fence that separated us from a grassy field. I shook them around the tower, amongst the crosses. We took turns taking our portions, mingling an ancient past with a painful present, scattering his ashes along with our tears.

Joan and Dave poured some ash around the base of one of the High Crosses, and I was a bit embarrassed I had not thought of it first. I supposed initially the cross seemed too sacred to touch, but it seemed fitting. It seemed perfect.

We took a moment to remember the wonderful things about Roger, circled around the High Cross, and then one by one we headed back to the van. His father walked me out of the cemetery with his arm around my shoulder. My sister in law and the kids were already back in the van by the time the remaining four of us approached the gate. Dave had already climbed over and was waiting to help us do the same.

"Did anyone actually try to open the gate before?" Joan asked.

Silence... Roger's father lifted the latch that held the gate closed, and without a struggle it opened.

"You are kidding me!!!" I cried, but this time it was accompanied by laughter. We all laughed. It was a Roger moment, and I love that those still exist.

Nonetheless, I insisted on hopping the fence.

And It All Winds Down

My concept of time has changed dramatically since Roger's death. I never know just quite how to explain the reality of time dragging on second by second and rushing by quicker than I can process, all simultaneously. That day feels like forever ago. The day before, though, just happened...

I won't say that we decided to go take his ashes to Ireland. "Decided" is the wrong verb; we knew instantly it was something we had to do. The moment the words, "I guess we're going to Ireland" escaped my brother-in-law's lips was ages ago. So much life has already happened between that moment and this. Our evening trip for the first spreading of ashes was surely far more than just 4 days ago. But in the same, our time in Ireland has flown by, as have the months of re-learning to be me.

Far from a vacation, this trip has been difficult, emotionally draining, and not at all the way I would ever want to visit a country. Nonetheless, as our trip comes to a close, I can honestly not imagine a more perfect and appropriate way to say our final goodbyes than amidst family, the beauty of Ireland, and the truth that Roger is exactly where he wanted to be, though not at all in the capacity we once imagined.

The Tie That Binds

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I guess technically I've just made it through my first holiday, although Easter isn't one of those "big ones" that I know I'll face later. This afternoon my parents and I met Roger's family at Trattoria Lisina in Driftwood... long drive, well worth it. :) I indulged in a little lobster risotto, a nice chianti, and an overly rich coupling of cinnamon and hazelnut gelato.

 

I've wondered the last couple of months what would happen to those relationships as time goes by. I suppose there are some that would disagree, but I've always felt that I married into a family, not just the man. And I've always felt very lucky that the stars aligned in such a way that the family I legally joined is amazing.

While we were planning the memorial, there was a driving force that intertwined our lives during those two weeks, and as we all found ourselves breathing a sigh of... not relief, not completion... maybe a sigh of exhaustion when it was all over, one of my first thoughts was, "Aside from our trip to Ireland, will I see these people again?"
      
 I remember meeting Roger's family for the first time. It was actually his sister and niece that I met on this occasion. We had come back from a date, and the two of them were still up. His niece was 2 or 3 at the time. She was very intrigued by my red, faux-crocodile purse, and while the adults engaged in small talk, the niece raided my belongings. It turned out that she had recently acquired a children's book called My Granny's Purse that also had exciting things to excavate.
      
His parents reminded me so much of my own: teacher mom, beer-drinking dad... okay, that's simplifying their comparative qualities, but isn't the root of our existence truly a combination of the profession that calls us and our beverage of choice? ;)

I got to know his family really well on the first family vacation I took with them. We ventured to Concan to brave the wilds of the Frio River, which sounds ridiculous until the story morphs into the true story of a 20 minute tube ride turning into a 4-5 hour tubing disaster, the likes of which included taking the wrong branch of the river, no sunscreen, a rain and electrical storm, hiking with the tubes up a slick, muddy embankment to the very camp site in Deliverance, and asking the crazy hillbillies within to drive us back to our own cabin via the back of their truck. It became a fairly miserable afternoon that climaxed with one of my worst sunburns ever and the realization that I was so lucky to be joining this group of people in my marriage.

What happens to that history? What becomes of the stories we've written together on holidays and vacations, over glasses of wine and games of Scrabble, through the deaths and marriages of relatives? Where do we go from here when the original tie that bound us together is gone?

As we ate lunch today, I played photographer with my fancy toy. I'm still learning, but I think I got some great shots. There was obviously a missing chair from our table (and our table was noticeably quieter than the last time we at the trattoria when I constantly had to remind Roger that his voice carries like crazy), but what there wasn't was an awkwardness of not belonging. I love those guys like my own family because whether they like it or not, they are family, and not even death can dissolve the tie that binds.