Special Grandma

Patrick's Grandma Belle passed away a couple of weeks ago.  It's hard having her gone, but I know it was best for her.  We were asked to put together a photo memorial for the funeral, so we spent a lot of time going through her old photo albums. 

 She was a beautiful lady.  She is smiling in pretty much every picture, and always looks like she's having a good time. In fact, we noticed quite a few similarities to our own photos - boating, camping, and partying seem to be the main themes.  She is wearing a bikini a lot!

I'm sad that I didn't think to go through them while she was there to give me the stories behind them all, but I still feel closer to her for having seen them.  There are lots of great images, but my favorite of them all is this one:

I can tell how much they loved each other, and it makes me want to make sure that we will have the same thing in our lives.  I'm sad that Grandpa Bud passed away so young and that I never got to meet him.

It makes it easier knowing how much she loved us, and wanted us to be happy.  She tended to spoil us in every way she could.  Pat complained all the time that she liked me better than him!  I'm very glad that we got a few extra weeks after her seizure, as hard as they were for her and us.

Book List - November, December, and 2010 Totals

I didn't realize until today that I never posted my November book list.  Of course that's a good thing because it means I can post about more today then the two books I managed to read in December.  It has just been a really crazy month.  Jim was in town for two weekends of the month, and the other two were full of birthday and Christmas festivities, plus we've been spending a lot of time visiting Grandma Belle.  Weekends seem to be the time I catch up on everything, and I just haven't had any weekend time to spare.

After work we've been doing the bare minimum to keep our house livable, and trying to relax a little.  We've become slightly addicted to the show How I Met Your Mother.  We just started watching it a few weeks ago, and we finished season five this morning.  We have half of season six to watch and then we are caught up with what is currently airing.  I'm not sure how we will manage having to wait for the show to air since we have become used to watching about six episodes per day.  At least we might get our butts off the couch and do something.

Anyway, back on topic, here's the books I read in November:

On the Edge by Ilona Andrews - 309 pages
Intrigues by Mercedes Lackey - 328 pages
Dreadnought by Cherie Priest - 400 pages
Dark Desires After Dusk by Kresley Cole - 368 pages

TOTAL - 4 books - 1,405 pages


December:

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon - 850 pages
Midnight Brunch by Marta Acosta - 327 pages

TOTAL - 2 books - 1,177 pages


2010 TOTALS:
75 Books (Average of 1 book every 4.87 days)
26,885 Pages (Average of 74 pages per day)

I read 38% less this year than I did last year by page count.  That seems like quite a drop, but it does seem like I have been much busier this year compared to last year.  It also seems like I have been spending more of my free time watching TV, playing games, and reading blogs.  Maybe that will change this year, maybe not.  I guess we will see what the year brings.