halloween!

I am apparently terrible at carving pumpkins - something I was oblivious to since the last time I carved a pumpkin I was a Girl Scout.
First, I did a ghost.... then it just fell apart. So then I made a face, but it has a hole through the back of its head from the failed ghost.
Lee's is cute though.

Cake

Some things should not be eaten after one year of sitting in a freezer, then being thrown into a cooler for 5 hours, then sitting in the freezer again for a couple of weeks.


This is all we could manage to eat. That one bite.

I really hope the wedding cake was better a year ago.

"One can survive everything nowadays, except death" -Oscar Wilde

The past five days have consisted of:
sitting on my grandmother's white couch
eating constantly
crying
sleeping

over and over and over.

It's been one of the longest weeks of my life. Thankfully my family is pretty awesome, so it wasn't as sucky as it could have been. Also, my grandmother was hilarious in general, so there were a lot of good stories to tell and funny old pictures to look at.

I am going to miss her terribly. She was one unique lady: Mrs. Manners, yet bossy & opinionated as hell. Republican, yet secretly liberal. All about appearances, but always allowed you to be yourself. I loved her: I loved visiting her, I loved talking on the phone to her, I even loved talking about her. She was one of my favorites and I am thankful I have a ton of wonderful memories of time spent with her.

When we buried her this morning, we all tossed in things in her grave. The items thrown in included: rocks from our family trip to Lake Michigan, shells from the beach, playing cards (she was a bridge fanatic), a love letter written from her to my grandfather while she was in college (most adorable letter ever), mardi gras beads, and a fancy wine glass. No other items could have as accurately described her personality.

Here are two of my favorite photographs of me & her:


This was taken in my Grandmother's kitchen, when we taught Mary and I how to make her secret, awesome, chocolate silk pie.



This was taken at the end of our wedding reception. I don't know what we're laughing at, but I adore adore adore this photo.

These past two weeks have been crappy for some of my friends as well, and my heart & thoughts go out to Adam & Jason Dane, Brian Branam, and Kendell Moore who all lost their mothers, as well as Rachel Donaldson, whose grandmother passed away.

laughter + tears

My grandmother is dying. I'm really, terribly sad about it. But I'm currently trying to push back my tears and make jokes, something my grandmother is also good at doing. For instance, yesterday, after she told me "goodbye", she said she was practicing the death scene from Camille.

The rain couldn't keep me

from voting the hell out of this election.

October is the month.

Things that have been awesome about the last two days:
1. hair is black again, without roots
2. my hair is/was straight, with positive reactions
3. a massage
4. not going to work on a Tuesday
5. shoes shopping with my hilarious husband
6. lunch with heather and kerry
7. beer at work
8. Best of Nashville party.

above: Me + Mike, our publisher and my boss
below: Me + Brent, my awesome friend and coworker



above: Me, Tracy, + Patrick
below: Me, Alyson (coworker who put on the awesome party), + Derek (one of our new designers)

one year down.

I married a cutie.

kobe&miso

Hopefully one day we will have a dog, so I can name him "Bento."