Ohmystinkinheck

Emelie made some sugar cookies to practice with Royal Icing today. We picked up a few new cookie cutters and she had fun with some letters and numbers.

It was a hectic day of running errands and getting things taken care of in preparation for the funeral. I was short on patience and tall on tears. I kept feeling like I was forgetting something all day and it left me uneasy. Gathering up appropriate attire for everyone was a task; making sure all the kids’ dress shoes actually fit and getting new ones when they didn’t, finding a skirt and shoes for me, getting Jeff’s suit to the dry cleaner and guessing the neck size for a dress shirt - and getting it to the dry cleaners too, getting the dogs set up at the kennel, you know…stuff.

At the end of the day I lost my keys in our local bookstore. We searched high and low. We crawled, moved books, back-tracked. I was nearly to the point of sitting down and crying in the middle of the aisle when one of the employees found it atop a rack of books I hadn’t checked yet, of course.

There is still laundry to be done, a few things to be pressed, and an early wake-up. I really just want my us to already “BE” with my parents, Don and Betty, and the rest of the family at my Grandpa’s house. I need to be in the midst of all those that know and love Grandpa like I do. And yet, we haven’t even hit the road yet.

And my Emelie knew that.
So, while I folded clothes and barked orders she made me three cookies.
Three very important cookies.
And she touched my heart.

Oh how she touched my heart.

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My Grandpa went to be with our Lord this morning.
He got up, ate breakfast, went back down for a nap after breakfast and never woke up.
He was 92.
My Dad called me during my Sunday nap to let me know.
I’ve been crying in waves ever since.

I’ve written about him on the blog a couple of times; I love the man so much.

My heart hurts.
My chest aches.
My head hurts from crying.
At the same time my soul rings the truth - he has finally been released from his ailing and aged body into the freedom of eternity with Christ.

Before he died he talked to my Aunt Betty about the music he wanted at his funeral.

• In the Garden
• I’ll Fly Away
• Tennessee Waltz
• The Last Date

Why the Tennessee Waltz you say? Well, not because of the words - no heart-break stories there. My Grandpa said that the Tennessee Waltz was to be played because of the waltz he was gonna have with my Grandma when he met her in heaven; she died 7 years ago of Alzheimer’s.

My Grandpa would play the Tennessee Waltz on his piano in the evenings. I remember being all snuggled in bed with my cousin and falling asleep to the sound of him stroking the song from the keys.

His funeral will be a celebration; I just know it.
A celebration of a hard-working man who loved his wife, loved his family and loved the Lord.

And I’ll be a part of it. I’ll be singing “In The Garden” and will join my aunt and uncle on “I’ll Fly Away”. The last two on the list above will be played by my aunt Charlotte; she is absolutely amazing on the piano.

Pray for all of us to serve him well at his going away.
If you still have your Grandpa, give him a hug, a call, mail a letter, because you just never know.

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When my good friend Jessica decided to take a break from web design for a while, some of our previous plans were scratched off the slate, including a site we were working on together.

It has been nearly a year now (because obviously Jess wasn’t the only one that needed the break) and I’ve finally pulled out the old web files, cleaned them up, fixed broken links and out-dated screenshots, and worked them into my blog for you guys to use if needed and share with your friends.

The step-by-step tutorials below are for those of you (and future visitors) who are using free, web-hosted blogs like Blogger, Wordpress.com, LiveJournal, TypePad, etc…, but have been hankering to ditch the blogging training wheels and start riding with the bigger kids on the block. It isn’t for the faint of heart, but then again, there’s something special about investing in your ‘ride’, if you know what I mean.

If ya need’em, use ‘em.
If ya don’t, don’t.
Either way, they’re here.

Taking your Self-Hosted Blog to a New Level

Ditch Your Blogging Training Wheels.
A lab segment from Blogher 2007: Transitioning to a self-hosted blog (Intermediate)

• How to purchase your own domain name
• How to purchase web hosting
• Defining DNS, what is it and why do you need to know?
• Setting up WordPress using cPanel and Fantastico.
• Setting up Domain Re-Directs to your new weblog.

Next up? I re-code WordPress Wednesdays and get that going again. Are you ready for it?

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