My nephew at a nearby park we visited 🙂
Well, that was a long break, wasn’t it?
I didn’t mean to take so much time off and I’m sorry to those of you who were worried 😉
On Friday I went to the Atlanta area for my nephew’s graduation and to see my dad, then spend time with my mom. I can’t believe my nephew has graduated high school. He is such an amazing kid, and I’m glad I was so close to him for so long when he was younger so we still have a pretty strong relationship. He’s also as big a fan of nature as my mom and I are, so he really enjoys spending time with us doing things outdoors. Which we did in between rainy days and had a wonderful time. I’m grateful that he is so close with my mom as well.
Anyway, I only came home last night around midnight, so I was gone for five days. My sister and niece left for Florida with my dad and step-mom on Saturday so my mom and I had the rest of the weekend and beginning of the week to do things together, and guess what I did??
I made a quilt! Well, obviously it’s not finished yet, but I pieced it (it’s a 60×60 throw), got the backing ready, and am now waiting for my organic cotton batting to arrive so I can baste it and start quilting. By hand. I’m sort of nervous about that last part, I’ve never quilted such a big piece before, and it’s been two decades since I have done any quilting at all, but I don’t have a sewing machine, and I’d like to try and do it myself instead of send it away for quilting. So…we’ll see how it goes! I’ll share pictures of it once I get it more together. (who wants to take a wild guess at the color scheme??? Leo’s comment was “you really went out on a limb there…”)
I’m not going to lie, it was sometimes frustrating to work so closely on a project with my mother for so many days, but it was more enjoyable than not. She is a perfectionist if there ever was one, and where I get a lot of my tendencies I am trying to overcome LOL. Overall, I had the most wonderful time and although I’m happy to be home to Leo and Dagny, I always have a very hard time leaving my family.
My stepson arrives for the summer on Saturday, so I’ll be busy and distracted for a while, but wow…at the airport I just felt such a wave of sadness leaving my mother; it is harder and harder every time. My parents are in amazing health and very active, etc., but my mother is alone at home, and I can’t help worrying. I also just enjoy spending time with both my parents, doing nothing (we worked a puzzle, sat outside and just talked, went to REI…) and want to do it as much as possible, before I can’t anymore. And yes, I am incredibly lucky and grateful that I can see them as much as I do, but it’s never the same as living nearby, instead of a plane-ride away.
And wow, Atlanta was in rare form this trip. It rained quite a bit, but it was mostly not-too-hot, and just beautiful outside. I miss living there too: the trees…the GREEN…the parks.
If you live far away from your parents, how do you handle it?
I was home for the long weekend and have spaced my trips home more and more over the years. It’s not terribly far – about a 5-hour drive, and I get close a few times a year – my brother and his wife and kiddo live in between (around 3.5 hours away), so we often meet there. It was brutally hot, but what I expected to enjoy most was the reduced population density. I live in a metro area of close to 3M people and that means that our treasured (and free) attractions are ALWAYS super busy. But “busy” in my home town of 100K people is a dream by comparison. Parking is easy. The trip is never more than 7-10 minutes, even all the way across town. Traffic is never an issue.
I would love to see my mom and brother more often, but relocation, given our careers of choice and the point in which we find ourselves (locally-based clientele and reputation and licensure) makes relocation really impractical while we are working for a living. So we just connect as often as we can and try to make it count when we do. x
I live in a different country, and either a 10 hour drive or an expensive flight from my parents and my sister, so I hear you loud and clear on this one. Honestly it’s never gotten easier – we all make the most of our time together, but we’re always gutted when it’s time to leave – and for a few days after. I like to think that it’s that way because it matters. Things worth doing should feel something, even if that something isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. We try our best to see each other as often as possible, and to stay connected when we don’t, but I think the day it’s easy to walk away would be a sad day.
Aw man, I feel you Grechen.
My whole family (parents, brother and his family, extended family) live 1000 kilometres away in my home town.
It’s only a 1h45m flight home but that involves being organised. It’s not like I can just get in the car and drive either (darned pesky living in an island nation).
With my parents aging and my brother’s family expanding, I feel like I’m missing out even though my family is really good at including me, sending photos and messages and talking on the phone pretty regularly.
I’d love to move home, it’s where my heart is happiest but finding a permanent position for me is incredibly hard plus we have a business here. Stuck in the South for a while yet…..
I’m fortunate that I’m in a financial position where I’ve been able to go home for quite a few weekends already this year. But it’s never enough? Even when I’ve been home for a week, I always feel like I need more time.
Le sigh. It hurts my heart.
yes. it hurts my heart too…
but we do what we can, right??
oh, yes, that is very true. i love having such a wonderful relationship with my family, it sustains me.
so, i too would be very sad if it became easy to walk away!
it does become sort of overwhelming a bit though, since i try to just really suck it all in while we’re together. i wear myself out LOL. so my goal is to try and do more shorter trips, which is very easy to atlanta, since it’s quite an affordable flight from DAL. not so much to orlando though…haha
I don’t live too far but it is expensive to fly between islands in Hawaii and I work a lot so it isn’t always easy to get away for a weekend. I talk on the phone or text. My mother follows me on IG but she doesn’t post much. My goal was to go back once a month but it has been more like once a quarter. Once I can stop working every weekend, I will increase. They are healthy as well.
I deleted my FB account earlier this year and that is a major con to that – losing day to day shares with my relatives, especially the older generation. But deleting FB from my life was extremely beneficial otherwise.
Hi, Grechen! I’m awfully glad you posted again because I was starting to get worried. It really made me realize how much I look forward to your posts every weekday. I’m so happy you were having wonderful time with family.
I get the thing about parents. My father (God rest his soul) died about ten years ago, but my Mum is still going strong at 87. My little sister is the only one of us who doesn’t live near my Mum, and I know that it breaks her heart a little every time she has to leave after a visit. She flies out here (we’re in L.A.) from New York once (sometimes twice) a year, but they talk on the phone all the time. It’s REALLY hard for my sister, but I think that in some ways she’s even closer to my mother than the rest of my siblings (there are 5 of us total) because their phone relationship is so tight, and they talk practically every day.
I guess I don’t really have any specific advice or wisdom, but the fact that you so love and appreciate your family is really wonderful . Just make sure they know that. It’s really all any of us can do, whether we live near each other or not.
xoxox