My Grandfather passed on Tuesday. We knew it was coming and it was his time...it just still is hard. He was my last remaining grandparent. My hubby has one left...so technically (through marriage), I've got one and the kids still have one great-grandparent left.
If I could use the blog as a forum to impart advice from him it would be this...get back to nature. He loved the land...an avid hunter, fisherman, and gardener, he could feed multiple families off the land. Growing up, I can remember my Mom in the kitchen till late hours of the night canning beans and tomatoes, freezing corn, making jellies, freezing game (venison, pheasant) and fish. Our house was always stocked with food he loved to provide our family. I try to be healthy and in his honor I will strive to eat a diet of less processed and more whole foods.
He was an incredibly hard worker and helped me plant my first garden when we bought our first house. When we bought our second house, he came along to "help" us get settled. After some time of me not being organized enough to provide a task for him, he eventually took a rag and cleaned every baseboard in the house. He was 84 at the time and I'm not quite sure if the baseboards have been cleaned since. :) He wasn't happy unless he was working! That was my Pap!
The one other really fond memory I have is that he HATED pizza. When I was a kid, he told me that the cheese was "the snot" of the kid that made the pizza. I don't hate pizza, but I will never forget that.
On top of that, the weather sucks which means running has been hard. Really hard. I just don't like temperatures in the upper teens with 20+mph winds (who does, honestly?). So, while I would normally pound out 5 miles to get rid of the stress, I've been riding a recumbent bike and taking it out on my husband. He's a trooper for putting up with me right now.
ARL went back to school today. She's been sick since the weekend. It was nice to have her on the way back to her old self..
